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THE  PEACE  OP  THE  CHUECH 


The  Church  Idea: 
Cloth  50  cents,  paper  25  cents. 

The  National  Church: 
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The  Peace  of  the  Church: 

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THE 


PEACE  OF  THE   CHURCH 


BY 
WILLIAM   REED   HUNTINGTON 

RECTOR  OF  GRACE  CHURCH,   NEW  YORK. 


In  Veritate  Victoria 


Neto  iorft 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS 

1899 


••..••::•:  /■.•.:;■■.,: 


COPTBIGHT,  1891,  BT 
WILLIAM  R.  HUNTINGTON 


AU  rigTUs  reserved 


TO 

THE  DEAR  MEMORY  OF 

H.  H. 

WHO  ALIKE  BY  PRECEPT  AND  BY  EXAMPLE 
TAUGHT  ME  HOPE. 


275695 


PREFACE. 


A  NATURAL  comment  upon  the  general  drift  of 
argument  and  appeal  in  the  following  pages  would 
be  that  it  is  too  conspicuously  Protestant.  Are  the 
children  of  the  Reformation,  the  author  might  very 
plausibly  be  asked,  the  only  Christian  folk  to  be 
counted  in  forecasting  the  contour  and  proportions 
of  our  national  Church?  Is  no  significance  to  be 
attached  to  the  marvellous  growth  and  spread  among 
us  of  the  Latin  form  of  Christ's  religion  in  these 
recent  days  ?  And  have  we  no  word  of  invitation 
for  those  who  differ  with  us  in  tlieir  estimate  of  the 
value  of  the  results  Luther  and  Cranmer  brought  to 
pass  ?  Certainly  there  is  force  in  these  expostula- 
tions. To  wink  the  advance  of  Roman  Catholic  re- 
ligion in  this  country  out  of  sight  is  as  foolish  as 
the  letting  ourselves  be  irritated  by  what  we  see  is 
weak. 

Neither  are  those  to  be  commended  who  can  see 
in  the  activity  of  the  Papal  forces  nothing  less 
or  other  than  a  distinct  menace  to  our  civilization. 
The  real  reason  why  the  conciliatory  effort  of  this 
book  bends  wholly  towards  a  different  point  of  the 


X  PREFACE. 

compass  is  that,  for  the  present,  any  attempt  from 
without  to  influence  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  is 
absolutely  hopeless.  The  Vatican  decrees  of  1870 
have  accomplished  what  the  framers  and  promoters 
of  them  doubtless  meant  that  they  should  accom- 
plish, —  the  utter  overthrow  of  any  hopes  of  "  peace 
with  Rome "  on  ground  other  than  that  of  uncondi- 
tional surrender.  Meanwhile  there  is  much  to  en- 
courage the  belief  that,  in  ways  hidden  from  the  eyes 
of  outsiders,  a  change  is  going  on  within  the  confines 
of  the  Roman  Church  in  this  country,  likely,  at  no 
very  distant  day,  to  become  knowable  and  readable 
of  all  men.  The  German  and  the  Irish  elements, 
there  is  reason  to  suspect,  consort  as  ill  together 
within  the  one  fold  as  ever  did  Guelph  and  Ghibel- 
line  of  old ;  and  it  would  not  be  the  strangest  thing 
in  all  the  world,  if  the  indisposition  of  the  faithful 
laity  to  receive  their  politics  from  Rome  were  to 
expand  into  a  large  unwillingness  to  accept  foreign 
dictation  in  any  department  of  thought  and  life. 
"  Ultramarine  "  may  grow  to  be  as  obnoxious  an  ad- 
jective in  America  as  ever  "ultramontane"  was  in 
Europe. 

With  the  upspringing  of  a  genuine  and  general 
"  Old  Catholic "  movement  among  the  Romanists  of 
the  United  States,  many  things  now  seemingly  impos- 
sible might  become  possible,  —  among  them  an  Eng- 
lished and  reformed  Missal,  a  modified  Confessional, 
and  a  rehabilitation  of  the  primitive  Creeds  as  the 
only  oecumenical  symbols  of  binding  force.      When 


PREFACE.  XI 

this  state  of  things  shall  have  been  reached  (and 
events  in  Europe  as  well  as  in  America  may  be 
hastening  it  more  rapidly  than  we  suppose),  it  will 
be  time  enough  to  begin  waving  our  olive  branch 
towards  the  extreme  right;  the  two  religions  will 
at  least  have  come  within  speaking  distance  of  each 
other. 

For  the  present,  the  only  hopeful  outlook  for  non- 
Roman  Christians  seeking  unity  is  in  the  direction 
of  the  great,  restless,  ill-compacted  and  ill-contented 
mass  of  reformed  Christendom.  To  aid  those  who, 
deeply  dissatisfied  with  things  as  they  are,  are  feeling 
about  in  the  dark  for  pillars  strong  enough  to  hold  up 
things  as  they  ought  to  be,  has  been  the  author's  one 
endeavor. 

The  task  set  before  the  Christian  Church  in  Amer- 
ica is  her  familiar  one  of  conquest ;  but  open-eyed 
observers  have  to  acknowledge  that  the  conditions  of 
the  warfare  are,  in  many  respects,  unparalleled.  What 
we  are  witnessing  is  not  the  hopeful  approach  of  a 
new  religion  to  minds  wholly  unfamiliar  with  its  mes- 
sage, but  rather  the  painful  endeavor  of  an  old  reli- 
gion to  maintain  its  hold  upon  a  mixed  multitude, 
already  nominally  under  its  sway,  but  so  situated  as  to 
be  peculiarly  open  to  the  temptation  to  revolt.  The 
suggestion  that  possibly  America  may  not  continue 
permanently  Christian  is  undoubtedly  a  painful  one 
whether  to  make  or  to  receive;  but  honest  students 
of  the  signs  of  the  times  cannot,  with  a  clear  con- 
science, refuse  to  take  it  into  account.     To  a  religious 


xii  PREFACE. 

mind,  that  horoscope  of  our  national  destinies  looks 
to  be  infinitely  the  most  worthy  which  sees  in  the 
land  that  has  been  given  us  an  opportunity  for  the 
upbuilding  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  on  earth  such  as 
never  before  was  put  within  a  people's  grasp.  No- 
where, it  would  seem,  so  easily  as  here  might  Chris- 
tian civilization,  taught  by  the  blunders  of  the  past 
and  unimpeded  by  the  rubbish  of  old  failure,  essay 
to  build  anew  the  perfect  city.  The  very  fairness  of 
the  vision  is  to  some  eyes  sufficient  evidence  that  the 
dream  is  certain  to  come  true.  We  stumble  not  at 
believing  what  with  the  whole  heart  we  most  desire 
to  believe,  except,  indeed,  when  the  obstacles  to  our 
faith  are  of  the  overwhelming  sort;  and  this  ideal 
picture  of  the  new  Civitas  Dei  destined  to  spring  up 
on  a  continent  mysteriously  kept  out  of  sight  until  the 
old  errors  of  construction  had  betrayed  themselves 
and  all  things  were  ready  for  a  new  attempt,  has 
a  subtile  charm  in  it  to  which  the  imagination  easily 
succumbs. 

But  men  engaged  in  the  administration  of  impor- 
tant trusts  are  bound  to  take  counsel  of  their  just 
apprehensions  as  well  as  of  their  sanguine  hopes; 
and  the  Christian  Church,  as  the  trustee  of  the  faith, 
may  not  too  confidently  assume  that  all  things  will 
fall  out  happily  for  her,  and  as  they  ought  to  do,  in 
this  new  world.  Some  fears  are  reasonable  and 
proper  fears,  and  to  shut  our  eyes  on  them  is  but 
to  invite  them  to  fulfil  themselves. 

There  are  those  of  us  who  have  become  convinced 


PREFACE.  xm 

that  only  in  a  genuine,  thorough-going,  actual  and  vis- 
ible unity  is  there  hope  for  the  survival  of  what  is  best 
in  the  Christian  life  of  the  Republic.  But  we  do  not 
desire  to  compass  our  end,  or  rather  what  we  like  to 
think  of  as  God's  purpose,  by  any  hypocritical  veiling 
of  real  difficulties,  or  insincere  attempts  to  put  obsta- 
cles out  of  existence  by  putting  them  temporarily  out 
of  mind.  "  Things  are  what  they  are,"  and  no  bandy- 
ing of  pleasant  words  or  exchange  of  platform  courte- 
sies can  alter  the  everlasting  fact  that  unity,  in  order 
to  endure,  must  rest  on  truth. 

W.  R.  H. 

New  York,  May  1,  1891. 


CONTENTS. 


-•- 


*•  PAGiB 

A  Protocol 3 


n. 

The  Archives 51 

III. 
The  Credenda 99 

IV. 

The  Signs  and  Seals 139 

V. 
Pilotage 173 

VI. 

A  Church  by  Love  Established      .    .    •    •    •    209 


THE  QUADRILATERAL. 


The  Holy  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  as 
"  containing  all  things  necessary  to  salvation,"  and  as  being 
the  rule  and  ultimate  standard  of  faith. 


n. 

The  Apostles'  Creed,  as  the  Baptismal  Symbol ;  and  the 
Nicene  Creed,  as  the  sufficient  statement  of  the  Christian 
faith. 

lU. 

The  two  Sacraments  ordained  by  Christ  Himself, — Bap- 
tism and  the  Supper  of  the  Lord,  —  ministered  with  unfailing 
use  of  Christ's  words  of  institution,  and  of  the  elements 
ordained  by  Him. 

IV. 

The  Historic  Episcopate,  locally  adapted  in  the  methods 
of  its  administration  to  the  varying  needs  of  the  nations  and 
peoples  called  of  God  into  the  Unity  of  His  Church. 


L 

A  PROTOCOL. 


As  the  safety  of  the  whole  is  the  interest  of  the  whole,  and  cannot  be 
provided  for  without  government,  either  one  or  more  or  many,  let  us  inquire 
whether  one  good  governmtnt  is  not,  relative  to  the  object  in  question,  more 
competent  than  any  other  given  number  whatever.  —  The  Federalist. 


THE  PEACE  OF  THE  CHURCH 


I. 

A  PROTOCOL. 

There  was  once  what  was  known  as  "  the  peace  of 
the  Empire."  There  is  destined  to  arrive  the  peace 
of  the  Church.  The  peace  of  the  Empire  meant  a 
civil  tranquillity,  brought  about  and  held  secure  by 
a  strong  central  force  posited  at  Rome. 

From  this  huge  dynamo  went  out  the  threads  that 
carried  light  and  heat  to  the  farthest  extremities  of 
the  old  Mediterranean  world.  It  was  a  powerful 
plant  that  could  propel  energy  along  such  tenuous 
conductors,  and  to  such  distances.  The  strength  and 
wit  of  many  generations  had  gone  to  the  construction 
of  the  machine ;  but  once  created,  it  acquired  a  cer- 
tain momentum  of  its  own,  a  running  force  largely 
independent  of  circumstances.  It  was  not  like  one 
of  those  delicate  mechanisms  which  a  grain  of  sand 
or  a  knot  in  the  thread  brings  to  a  stand-still;  the 
rollers  kept  their  motion,  and  the  long  arms  their 
thrust,  quite  regardless  of  petty  obstructions  of  what- 
ever sort.     The  Ca3sars  were  merely  men  intrusted 


4  THE  PEACE   OF  THE   CHURCH. 

with  the  running  of  the  dyaamc ;  oftener  than  not, 
they  were  themfeehes  crushed  among  the  wheels.  So 
impressive  was  this  self-perpetuating  aspect  of  the 
Empire  that  men  came  to  look  at  the  vast  organism 
as  immortal,  a  thing  that  could  not  die ;  and  secular 
poets,  eager  to  welcome  back  the  Golden  Age,  could 
picture  to  themselves  no  better  fulfilment  of  their 
hopes  than  such  a  stretching  of  the  peace  of  the 
Empire  as  would  make  it  cover  the  whole  earth.  A 
world 

*'  lapt  in  universal  law,"  — 

and  that  law  Roman  law,  —  was  the  goal  of  their 
most  sanguine  dreams. 

The  Christian  mind  of  to-day  sees  in  all  this  a 
divinely  ordered  preparation  for  the  spread  of  the 
gospel.  The  peace  of  the  Empire  made  the  spiritual 
conquest  of  the  Empire  possible.  The  military  roads 
were  as  available  for  the  evangelist  as  for  the  legion- 
ary, and  the  imperial  posts  could  carry  epistles  as 
easily  as  rescripts. 

Hence  it  is  no  wonder  that  when  the  time  was 
fulfilled  for  the  so-called  conversion  of  the  Empire, 
the  notion  should  have  taken  possession  of  the  minds 
of  many  that  the  City  of  God  was  already  come.  But 
really,  in  point  of  fact,  the  Empire  never  was  con- 
verted. Doubtless  manners  were  softened,  jurispru- 
dence modified,  the  general  look  of  things  a  good  deal 
altered  for  the  better ;  but  the  Empire,  as  such,  ex- 
perienced no  change  of  heart.     It  continued  what  it 


A   PROTOCOL.  ^ 

had  always  been,  — a  wonderfully  well-contrived  admin- 
istrative framework,  penetrated  and  backed  by  phy- 
sical force.  The  painting  of  a  new  monogram  on  the 
plate  of  the  machine  may  have  served  in  some  meas- 
ure to  discredit  Caesar ;  it  implied  no  real  enthrone- 
ment of  Christ. 

But  just  because  the  Empire  was  ineligible  for 
conversion,  it  became  liable  to  fall,  —  and  fell. 

To  the  bulk  of  its  immemorial  possessions,  —  some 
of  them  precious,  a  good  many  of  them  embarrassing, 
a  few  deadly,  —  the  Roman  Church  fell  heir ;  and  nota- 
bly to  the  old  tradition  that  associated  efficiency  with 
centralization.  We  have  come,  in  modern  times,  to 
know  more  about  the  structure  of  the  human  body 
than  the  ancients  did,  and  we  have  learned  from  that 
best  of  all  object-lessons  to  anticipate  in  a  perfect 
organism  the  distribution  of  centres  of  force. 

To  the  Roman  mind  such  a  thought  as  this  was 
wholly  foreign.  Unless  the  law  went  forth  from 
Rome,  how  could  there  be  unity  ?  As  this  question 
had  seemed  to  the  emperors  to  admit  of  but  one  reply  ; 
so  it  came  to  seem  also  to  the  popes.  Hence  when 
the  consciousness  of  nationality  awoke  strongly  in 
the  northern  races,  the  clash  followed  that  passes  in 
history  under  the  name  of  the  Reformation. 

I  am  not  attempting  a  complete  statement  of  the 
causes  of  that  momentous  quarrel.  Besides  its  po- 
litical character,  the  movement  had  also  its  still 
more  serious  doctrinal  aspects.  The  indictment 
found  ao^ainst  the  Latins  included  the  charge  of  a 


6  THE  PEACE   OF  THE   CHURCH. 

superstitious  adulteration  of  the  ancient  faith  with 
Pagan  ingredients,  as  well  as  that  of  an  infringement 
of  the  ancient  liberties.  Were  I  inviting  you  to  a 
thorough  analysis  of  the  Roman  Catholic  controversy, 
all  this  would  have  to  be  taken  into  account;  but 
for  our  immediate  purpose,  the  effect  of  the  Reforma- 
tion upon  polity  is  more  important  than  its  effect 
upon  dogma. 

We  are  working  our  way  towards  an  understanding 
of  the  ecclesiastical  state  of  things  that  confronts  us 
in  America ;  and  it  is  essential  to  a  just  appreciation 
of  facts  as  they  are  that  we  should  remind  ourselves 
of  facts  as  they  were.  There  was  a  time  then,  and 
that  not  so  very  long  ago,  when  there  had  succeeded 
to  the  peace  of  the  Empire  something  that  was  sup- 
posed to  be,  in  an  equally  real  sense,  the  peace  of  the 
Church.  To  be  sure  it  was  ruffled  by  disturbances 
and  heart-burnings  not  a  few  ;  but  so,  for  that  matter, 
had  the  peace  of  the  Empire  been,  even  at  its  best 
estate.  Nevertheless,  the  great  fact  stared  men  in 
the  face  that  there  existed  a  region,  bounded  by  geo- 
graphical lines  more  or  less  definite,  known  under  the 
comprehensive  name  of  Christendom. 

Throughout  this  tract  of  country  certain  great  re- 
ligious institutes  found  unvarying  recognition  and 
acceptance. 

One  could  go  from  land  to  land  and  find  every- 
where the  same  priesthood,  the  same  sacraments,  the 
same  pious  usages,  with  which  he  had  been  familiar 
in  his  own  home  from  childhood.     I  am  not  now 


A  PROTOCOL.  7 

speaking  of  the  blemishes  and  drawbacks  that  at- 
tached to  this  order  of  things  ;  I  am  calling  attention 
to  what  was  attractive,  and,  upon  the  surface  at  least, 
admirable  in  it  all.  Certainly  a  traveller  would  not 
find  such  privilege  of  sanctuary  amiss  to-day  if  he 
could  share  it.  It  would  add  to  the  enjoyment  of 
a  journey  in  Spain,  for  instance,  if  in  a  homesick 
moment  one  could  cross  the  threshold  of  Cordova's 
great  church,  or  kneel  down  on  the  floor  of  some 
lesser  house  of  God  by  the  roadside,  and  feel  that  he 
did  so  by  as  good  a  right  and  with  as  sincere  a  wel- 
come as  if  he  were  native  to  the  soil. 

How  can  we  wonder,  then,  that  devout  minds  of 
a  conservative  cast,  and  keenly  alive  to  the  excellen- 
cies of  the  then  existing  system,  should  have  felt 
disposed  to  fight  to  the  death  a  movement  which  by 
implication  threatened,  even  if  it  did  not  avowedly 
assail,  the  integrity  of  this  same  Christendom  ?  And 
how  can  we  wonder  that  in  our  own  days  ardent  and 
imaginative  souls,  viewing  the  past  in  the  warm  golden 
light  that  smooths  rough  outlines  and  makes  the  hard 
exterior  of  distant  objects  beautiful,  should  have  felt 
disposed  to  insist  that  only  by  retracing  their  steps 
and  going  back  to  the  Catholic  beliefs  and  usages  of 
the  old  days  before  the  quarrel,  could  Christendom 
be  re-achieved? 

But  before  we  take  up  with  that  timid  philosophy 
of  history  which  can  see  in  the  Reformation  nothing 
better  than  a  blunder,  we  must  consider  whether  any 
such  return  to  cover  as  the  one  proposed  is  practicable. 


8  THE  PEACE  OF  THE   CHURCH. 

It  is  one  thing  to  maintain  an  existing  system  against 
innovation,  it  is  another  and  much  harder  task  to  re- 
establish a  system  that  has  suffered  fracture.  The 
genie  of  the  Arabian  story  was  with  difficulty  coaxed 
back  into  the  casket  that  had  been  his  prison.  The 
spirit  set  free  at  the  Reformation  is  not  incapable  of 
being  housed,  but  it  will  never  consent  to  return 
to  quarters  no  roomier  than  those  from  which  it 
broke  away.  Least  of  all  can  the  proposal  to  rehabil- 
itate the  Christendom  that  was  before  Luther  and 
Cranmer,  make  a  plausible  showing  in  America.  In 
countries  that  once  formed  a  part  of  the  Roman  sys- 
tem, even  though  they  lay  upon  the  outer  edge  of  it, 
a  plea  for  reconstruction  upon  the  old  lines  can  boast 
a  certain  modicum  of  weight.  When  the  leaders  of 
the  Anglo-Catholic  movement,  for  example,  began 
some  fifty  years  ago  to  dream  of  carrying  England 
back  into  "the  Latin  obedience,"  the  forlornness  of 
their  hope  was  not  at  first  apparent.  All  the  forces 
of  romanticism  were  on  their  side ;  they  knew  that 
they  could  count  upon  considerable  dissatisfaction, 
born  of  despondency,  in  the  liberal  ranks,  and  there 
was  a  rallying  centre  ready  to  their  hands  in  the  old 
families  among  the  nobility  that  through  all  fortunes 
had  remained  loyal  to  the  ancient  order.  England 
had  once  held  a  place  in  the  Roman  framework ;  why 
might  she  not  again  ? 

Far  less  excuse  have  they  who,  here  in  America, 
turn  for  reconstructive  help  to  Italy.  Notions  that 
were  tenable  in  the  days  when  the  earth  was  supposed 


A   PROTOCOL.  9 

to  be  the  centre  of  the  universe,  ceased  to  be  tenable 
after  the  heliocentric  astronomy  had  come  in,  and 
notions  that  were  tenable  under  the  heliocentric  hy- 
pothesis as  first  understood,  have  ceased  to  be  ten- 
able now  that  we  suspect  that  even  the  sun  itself  has 
motion  and  an  orbit.  No  more  can  an  ecclesiastical 
polity,  originally  fashioned  to  fit  the  Roman  Empire 
as  closely  as  a  cloud-bank  moulds  itself  to  the  land- 
scape on  which  it  lies,  answer  for  the  needs  of  a  world 
dimensioned  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  Christendom 
that  used  to  be. 

This  does  not  necessarily  mean  that  the  Americas 
and  Australia  must  needs  construct  for  themselves 
forms  of  Church  life  and  governance  that  shall  stand 
wholly  unrelated  to  what  has  gone  before.  That  is 
not  God's  way  of  working,  nor  the  way  of  wise  men 
who  seek  to  imitate  the  Maker's  methods.  The  Co- 
pernican  astronomy,  to  go  back  to  our  parable,  did 
indeed  displace,  but  it  by  no  means  wholly  discredited 
the  Ptolemaic  astronomy.  All  that  was  true  in  the 
old  system  passed  over  into  the  new.  The  ancient 
observations  had  not  lost  their  value  because  a  revised 
grammar  of  their  significance  had  come  in. 

There  are  structural  principles  the  knowledge  of 
which  is  as  old  as  human  society  itself,  and  which  no 
revolutions  can  supersede.  In  any  future  unification 
of  the  Christian  body  these  principles  will  have  recog- 
nition and  play.  They  cannot  be  disowned,  because 
they  are  written  on  the  nature  of  man,  and  rank  among 
the  primal  facts.  To  disentangle  from  whatever  ought 


10  THE  PEACE   OF  THE   CHURCH. 

to  be  reckoned  transitoiy,  secondary,  and  adventitious, 
these  first  principles  of  social  house-building  will  be 
my  main  endeavor  in  these  lectures.  It  is  always  by 
returning  to  the  true  principia,  and  never  by  a  mere 
going  back  to  old  times,  that  society,  whether  in  its 
civil  or  its  ecclesiastical  form,  finds  safety. 

It  will  be  well  to  begin  by  considering  the  magni- 
tude and  complexity  of  the  problem  that  offers  itself 
for  solution  here  in  the  United  States,  —  a  country 
which  is  at  once  the  hope  and  the  despair  of  believers  in 
the  reunion  of  Christendom  ;  their  despair,  because  no- 
where else  has  the  process  of  division  and  subdivision 
been  further  carried ;  their  hope,  because  nowhere  is 
there  less  of  outward  constraint  to  hinder  a  complete 
reconciliation,  if  only  the  true  basis  of  amity  can  be 
found. 

I  invite  you  then  to  a  quick  review  of  our  ecclesias- 
tical past. 

With  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution,  the  United 
States  became  a  nation,  and  by  a  stroke  of  the  pen 
embarrassments  innumerable  that  had  vexed  the  life 
of  the  ill-compacted  Confederation  were  put  away. 
No  such  summary  process  of  reconstruction  and  con- 
solidation was  possible  for  the  scattered  religious  so- 
cieties which  from  time  to  time  during  the  colonial 
period  had  been  planted  along  the  Atlantic  seaboard, 
and  now  found  themselves,  each  with  its  own  little 
stock  of  inherited  prejudices  and  convictions,  maxims 
of  polity  and  formulas  of  faith,  about  starting  on  a 
new  career.     The  time  had  been  in  the  Old  World 


A  PROTOCOL.  11 

when  the  successful  assertion  hy  a  people  of  its 
})roper  civil  unity  would  have  been  followed,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  by  the  establishment  of  a  corres- 
ponding unity  ecclesiastical.  The  question  with  the 
England  of  the  seventeenth  century  had  not  been 
whether  there  should  or  should  not  be  an  established 
religion,  but  whether  the  religion  to  be  established 
should  be  Anglican,  Presbytei'ian,  or  Papal.  Such 
was  not  the  case  with  the  newly  liberated  colonies 
in  the  closing  years  of  the  century  that  followed  the 
seventeenth.  The  day  for  acts  of  uniformity  had 
manifestly  gone  by ;  and  although  to  religious  minds 
deeply  impressed  with  the  evils  of  sectarian  strife 
there  must  have  come  a  mingled  sense  of  envy  and 
self-reproach  in  noting  the  comparative  ease  with 
which  the  State  had  accomplished  oneness,  all  sensi- 
ble people  settled  down  to  the  conclusion  that  so  far 
as  the  Church  w^as  concerned  the  case  was  one  in 
which  patience  must  be  allowed  to  have  her  perfect 
work.  If  it  w^as  a  scandal,  and  a  scandal  it  doubtless 
was,  to  see  religion  arrayed  in  a  coat  of  many  colors, 
rather  than  in  her  own  proper  seamless  robe,  there 
was  at  least  the  comfort  of  remembering  that  foreign 
weavers  and  old-time  looms  were  responsible  for  the 
garment's  tints  and  texture.  It  is  true  that  the  deter- 
mination utterly  to  free  religion  from  State  control 
has  the  look  of  having  been  an  after-thought  with  the 
framers  of  the  Constitution,  appearing,  as  it  does,  in 
the  form  of  an  amendment  to  that  instrument,  and" 
not  as  one  of  the  original  articles.     The  fact,  how- 


12       THE  PEACE  OF  THE  CHURCH. 

ever,  that  the  amendment,  when  proposed,  excited  no 
active  opposition,  and  was  promptly  ratified,  shows 
how  wide-spread  and  deep-rooted  in  the  mind  of  the 
nascent  republic  was  the  conviction  that  Congress 
ought  to  "  make  no  law  respecting  an  establishment 
of  religion  or  prohibiting  the  free  exercise  thereof." 
That  this  view  of  the  situation  was  shared  by  leading 
minds  among  the  Anglican  portion  of  the  community 
is  evidenced  by  the  way  in  which  the  framers  of  the 
American  Prayer-book  expressed  themselves.  There 
were  then  present  on  our  soil  some  ten  or  twelve  forms 
of  organized  Christianity,  of  which  the  Anglican  was 
one.  In  the  face  of  this  fact,  what  attitude  did  the 
Church-of-England  men  think  it  becoming  in  them  to 
assume?  Did  they  assert  an  ecclesiastical  monopoly? 
Did  they  put  forward  any  imperious  claim  to  suprem- 
acy, or  even  to  primacy  ?  Not  at  all ;  they  simply,  in 
all  humility  of  mind,  remarked  that,  as  a  result  of  the 
political  revolution  that  had  taken  place,  "  the  different 
religious  denominations  of  Christians "  in  what  had 
been  the  Colonies,  but  had  now  become  the  States, 
had  been  "  left  at  full  and  equal  liberty  to  model  and 
organize  their  respective  churches  and  forms  of  wor- 
ship and  discipline  in  such  manner  as  they  might 
judge  most  convenient  for  their  future  prosperity, 
consistently  with  the  constitution  and  laws  of  their 
country."  ^ 

This  paragraph  has  been  criticised  for  its  naivete. 
and  for  a  lack  of  that  proper  self-assertion  which 
^  See  Preface  to  the  American  Book  of  Common  Prayer. 


A  PROTOCOL.  13 

Anglicans  alive  to  their  hereditary  rights  and  privi- 
leges should  have  maintained.  It  was.  however,  the 
language  of  men  who,  before  all  else,  were  bent  on 
looking  the  actual  facts  of  their  position  in  the  face, 
undisturbed  by  any  a  'priori  theories  of  ecclesiastical 
"mission  and  jurisdiction." 

They  may  have  entertained  individually  the  very 
strongest  convictions  as  to  the  exclusive  rightfulness 
of  the  Episcopal  regimen ;  they  may  have  held  te- 
naciously in  their  own  minds  to  the  apostolicity  of 
liturgical  worship;  but  they  had  the  good  judgment 
to  perceive  that  to  ask  from  their  fellow-citizens  any- 
thing more  than  a  fair  field  and  no  favor  would  be 
folly.  To  have  planted  the  Anglican  standard  in  the 
spirit  in  which  the  last  of  the  Bourbons  hoisted  at 
Frohsdorf  the  white  flag  of  his  house,  crying  to 
Orleanists,  Bonapartists,  and  Republicans  alike,  "  This 
or  nothing,"  might  have  gained  them  the  sort  of 
admiration  we  accord  the  captain  of  a  sinking  ship 
who  refuses  to  quit  his  quarter-deck,  but  it  would 
have  cost  us,  the  children,  our  inheritance.  White 
and  his  compeers  chose  a  wiser  course.  Persuaded  of 
the  innate  vitality  of  their  principles,  they  cheerfully 
refrained  from  anything  that  might  look  like  an  arro- 
gant assertion  of  them,  well  content  to  abide  the 
working  of  that  law  of  survival  which,  though  un- 
formulated in  their  day,  was,  in  its  practical  bearing 
upon  the  affairs  of  human  life,  as  clearly  discernible 
then  as  now. 

But  what,   in   point   of  historical   fact,   were   the 


14  THE  PEACE   OF   THE   CHURCH. 

"  different  religious  denominations,"  referred  to  in 
the  preface  of  the  Prajer-book  ?  Roughly  classified, 
and  named  in  the  order  of  their  earliest  organized 
beginnings  they  were  these  :  Episcopalians  (1607), 
Congregationalists  (1620),  Reformed  Dutch  (1628), 
Roman  Catholics  (1634),  Baptists  (1639),  Lutherans 
(1669),  Friends  (1672),  Presbyterians  (1684),  Men- 
nonites  (1708),  Moravians  (1734),  Methodists  (1773).i 
This  list  might  be  lengthened  by  expanding  genera 
into  species,  —  particularly  in  the  case  of  the  Baptists 
and  of  the  Presbyterians,  of  which  there  were  even 
then  several  varieties;  but  for  the  purposes  of  a  general 
view  the  enumeration  as  it  stands  is  adequate. 

Ethnologically  considered,  the  bulk  of  the  people 
were  of  English  stock ;  but  the  Dutch,  German,  and 
Scandinavian  elements  were  not  inconsiderable,  and 
there  was  also  a  certain  small  though  very  precious 
infusion  of  French  Huguenot  blood.  It  is  evident 
that  this  is  a  strong  Protestant  showing.  With  the 
single  exception  of  Maryland,  itself  largely  Angli- 
can, the  newly  enfranchised  States  may  be  said  to 
have  stood  for  the  Reformation.  It  looked  as  if  the 
two  religions  had  divided  the  two  Americas  between 
them,  Protestant  Europe  having  said,  I  will  take  the 
North  ;  and  Papal  Europe,  I  will  take  the  South.  It 
should  be  acknowledged,  however,  that  with  respect 
to  that  one  of  the  two  continents  with  which  we  are 
the  more  directly  interested,  this  remark  calls  for 
qualification.     French  Roman   Catliolics  flanked  the 

1  Dorchester's  Christianity  in  the  United  States,  pp.  35-43. 


A  PROTOCOL.  15 

infant  republic  on  the  northeast,  and  Spanish  Roman 
Catholics  on  the  south,  and  both  of  these  ante- 
dated, the  one  by  nearly  a  century,  and  the  other 
by  some  years,  the  Protestant  occupancy  of  North 
America. 

Such,  then,  was  the  ecclesiastical  state  of  things  at 
the  time  when  this  country  first  came  forward  to  take 
her  place  in  the  family  of  nations.  We  set  out  upon 
our  career  pledged  in  the  temporal  order  to  unity, 
but  given  over  in  the  spiritual  order  to  what  might  be 
called,  by  a  seeming  solecism,  classified  confusion. 
In  a  few  of  the  States  the  sanction  by  government 
of  some  one  denomination  to  the  discredit  of  the 
others  survived  the  shock  of  the  Revolution;  but  it 
was  only  for  a  little.  The  doctrine  of  establish- 
ments had  received  its  death-blow;  and  in  a  few 
years  all  semblance  of  a  desire  on  the  part  of  the  civil 
authorities  to  control  the  religious  affiliations  of  the 
citizen  vanished.  Church  and  State  became  almost 
as  distinctly  separated  as  they  had  been  before  Con- 
stantino's day.  I  say  "  almost,"  because  absolutely 
separate  Church  and  State  never  can  become  in  any 
country  where  the  bulk  of  the  people  hold  the  Chris- 
tian faith.  Wherever  property  interests  and  questions 
of  contract  come  in,  there  the  State  has  a  hold. 
Public  worship  calls  for  a  roof  and  walls ;  and  where 
these  are  there  is  property,  with  all  its  liabilities  to 
taxation,  attachment,  mortgage,  confiscation  and  the 
like.  The  fact  that  a  house  has  been  consecrated  to 
religious  uses  does  not  take  it  out  of  that  area  of 


16  THE   PEACE    OF   THE   CHURCH. 

things  material  in  which  the  State  enjo3's  eminent 
domain.  Then  there  is  marriage,  a  contract  or  a 
sacrament  according  as  we  look  at  it  from  a  common- 
law  or  a  canon -law  standpoint.  As  an  agreement 
between  two  individuals,  it  is  a  matter  for  judges 
and  juries  to  pronounce  upon;  as  a  "holy  estate" 
it  is  the  Church's  affair,  one  of  the  sanctities  with 
which  no  extraneous  power  may  intermeddle.  With 
limitations  the  same  thing  holds  good  of  education 
and  of  the  administration  of  charity.  These  are 
matters  which  the  State  may  almost  be  said  to  have 
taken  up  at  the  suggestion,  or,  at  any  rate,  influenced 
by  the  example  of  the  Church.  To  put  it  in  graphic 
form,  the  one  circle  overlaps  the  other,  and  certain 
interests  are  found  resident  in  the  space  which  belongs 
exclusively  to  neither  of  them,  while  yet  geometrically 
a  segment  of  each. 

While,  therefore,  if  we  mean  to  be  accurate,  it  is 
necessary  to  remember  that  with  the  Christianized 
peoples  things  secular  can  never  be  wholly  severed 
from  things  sacred,  we  have,  speaking  broadly,  a 
perfect  right  to  say  that  the  Revolution  broke  up 
completely  the  old-time  alliance  between  Church  and 
State,  leaving  the  former  of  the  two  at  perfect  liberty 
to  build  itself  up  as  best  it  might. 

Why  is  it  then,  that  the  Church  has  lagged  so  far 
behind  the  State  in  the  matter  of  achieving  unity  ? 
For  the  simple  reason  that  the  State  holds  and  wields 
the  power  of  the  sword.  The  thirteen  colonies  did 
not  become  a  republic  because  the  people  a^  a  whole 


.^A  PROTOCOL.  17 

wanted  a  republic,  for  it  is  notorious  that  many  of 
them  Avere  at  heart  warmly  attached  to  the  monarchy. 
The  republic  was  born  of  the  wishes  of  the  most  part, 
—  a  most  part  so  strong  that  it  would  have  been  hope- 
less for  the  lesser  part  to  attempt  resistance.  The 
framers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  had  said 
of  governments  that  they  derived  ''  their  just  powers 
from  the  consent  of  the  governed."  By  the  "  governed  " 
they  must  of  course  have  meant  the  greater  number  of 
the  governed,  for  probably  no  government  has  ever 
enjoyed  the  unanimous  good-will  of  those  who  lived 
under  its  laws.  The  State,  in  matters  of  the  State, 
does  not  and  cannot  tolerate  organized  dissent ;  the 
law  of  self-preservation  compels  it  to  insist  on  unity. 
There  may  be,  and  in  free  countries  there  is  entire 
liberty  to  think,  and  a  large  liberty  to  speak  in  this 
way  or  in  that  as  to  the  wisdom  of  existing  arrange- 
ments ;  but  no  attempt  to  act  as  if  these  arrangements 
did  not  exist  is  tolerated  for  a  moment.  A  citizen  of 
Pennsylvania  is  free  to  hold  the  opinion  that  the 
Supreme  Court  of  that  State  is  an  unjust  tribunal, 
and  he  is  also  free  to  exert  himself  in  every  way  to 
bring  about  the  abolition  of  it  by  legislative  process ; 
but  the  moment  he  makes  bold  to  act  in  defiance  of 
the  judgments  of  that  court  he  finds  himself  under 
arrest.  The  Bourbons  stamped  their  cannon  with 
the  legend  Regiim  ratio  ultima.  They  were  not  speak- 
ing for  monarchy  only.  All  civil  government, 
whether  it  be  called  democratic  or  imperial,  resorts 
to   force   as   its   final   argument.      When   discontent 


18  THE  PEACE  OF  THE   CHURCH. 

grows  strong  enough,  and  is  sufficiently  excited  to 
strike  back,  then  we  have  riot,  rebellion,  or  civil  war, 
as  the  case  may  be ;  but  ordinarily  things  go  on  much 
as  they  would  do  if  all  men  were  agreed.  There  is  ac- 
quiescence even  when  there  is  not  assent ;  so  evidently 
true  is  it  of  a  civil  community,  that  in  the  ordering 
of  its  affairs  it  is  quite  impossible  that  every  man 
should  have  his  own  way.  That  would  be  a  singular 
commonwealth,  indeed,  which  should  allow  the  impe- 
rialists, the  monarchists,  the  republicans,  and  the 
socialists  within  its  borders  "  full  and  equal  liberty 
to  model  and  organize  "  their  respective  governments 
"  in  such  manner  as  they  might  judge  most  convenient 
for  their  future  prosperity."  What  keeps  these 
various  groups  of  theorists  from  attempting  of  their 
own  motion  so  to  embody  their  ideas,  is  the  fact  that 
the  government  actually  in  possession  is  backed  by 
force,  and  will  not  let  them  do  it. 

But  the  spiritual  society  which  we  know  under  the 
name  of  the  Church  is  precluded,  by  the  very  law  of 
its  being,  from  maintaining  unity  after  this  fashion. 
The  Church  is  a  "union  of  hearts."  The  power  of 
the  sword  is  nowhere  discoverable  in  its  charter.  Its 
only  weapon  is  persuasion,  its  only  fetter  the  bond  of 
charity,  its  only  punishment  a  withdrawal  of  sacra- 
mental privilege.  We  have  to  acknowledge  that  often 
and  again  the  Church  has  lost  all  this  out  of  mind,  and 
acted  as  if  fear  rather  than  love  were  the  real  unify- 
ing power ;  but  in  the  beginning  it  was  not  so.  Christ 
instanced  the  fact  that  his  disciples  were  not  fighting 


A  PROTOCOL.  19 

men  as  an  evidence  of  the  unworldly  character  of  his 
kingdom.  The  implication  was  that  in  the  building 
up  of  the  new  social  order  He  had  come  to  announce 
and  to  begin,  no  reliance  would  be  placed  on  force. 
He  put  his  followers  upon  their  honor,  and  trusted 
them  to  serve  Him  without  fear.  In  a  common  loy- 
alty to  Himself  they  were  to  find  the  essential  motive 
to  unity.     The  rest  would  follow  in  due  time. 

In  the  light  of  these  thoughts  the  tardy  pace  at 
which  the  Church  moves  here  in  America  toward 
the  achievement  of  her  own  proper  unity  is  easily 
understood.  In  the  matter  of  civil  organization  we 
forced  our  way ;  in  the  matter  of  ecclesiastical  organ- 
ization we  are  feeling  our  way. 

First  of  all,  there  has  had  to  be  awakened  in  men's 
minds  a  proper  sense  of  the  discredit  that  attaches  to 
our  present  broken  estate.  Since  denominationalism 
came  in  as  a  recognized  state  of  things,  all  sorts  of 
pleasant  parables  have  been  devised  to  make  it  appear 
lovely.  Even  the  rainbow  has  been  forced  to  lend 
its  manifold  beauty  in  aid  of  the  exigencies  of  the 
argument,  and  we  are  exhorted  to  discern  in  our 
wretched  divisions  a  divinely  ordered  variety  every 
shade  of  which  is  essential  to  the  full  chromatic 
effect.  Since  the  fathers  fell  asleep,  all  things,  for 
the  denominationalist,  continue  as  they  were  from 
the  beginning.  It  is  his  steadfast  averment  that 
matters  are  well  enough  as  they  are,  and  that  it  is 
downright  ecclesiastical  Quioxtism  to  attempt  to 
better  them. 


20  THE   PEACE   OF   THE   CHURCH. 

Sometimes  in  defence  of  his  view  the  denomination- 
ahst  presses  the  argument  from  design,  sometimes 
the  argument  from  despair.  The  Creator,  he  reminds 
us,  has  made  men's  temperaments  as  various  as  their 
faces.  If  the  familiar  reminder  that  two  blades  of 
grass  are  never  found  alike  fails  to  convince  us,  we 
are  further  referred  to  Charles  the  Fifth  and  the 
story  of  the  monastery  clocks.  Surely  by  such  wealth 
of  illustration  we  ought  to  be  persuaded  that  the 
sects  into  which  the  Christian  Church  has  let  itself 
be  splintered  are  really  no  accident,  but  contrari- 
wise the  fruit  of  a  beneficent  purpose,  an  intelligent 
and  harmonious  design.  Let  us  school  ourselves  to 
see  in  our  denominations  only  so  many  flower-beds 
in  the  great  garden  God  has  planted,  and  in  which 
He  walks.  Here  are  roses,  there  carnations,  yonder 
lilies  of  the  valley  that  love  the  shade ;  but  it  is  all 
one  garden,  planned  by  one  mind,  laid  out  by  one 
hand,  fed  by  one  sunshine. 

All  this  has  a  familiar  sound.  "We  have  heard  it, 
time  and  again.  But  often  when  the  difficulty  of 
reconciling  this  pretty  parable,  or  these  pretty  para- 
bles, with  certain  very  distinct  words  of  Holy  Scrip- 
ture, not  to  mention  certain  hard  facts  of  human  life, 
has  been  pressed  home  so  vigorously  that  there  is  no 
escape,  the  denominationalist  falls  back  on  the  argu- 
ment from  despair.  True,  he  says,  it  would  indeed 
have  been  most  delightful  could  the  dream  of  the  ear- 
ly Fathers  of  the  Church  have  been  fulfilled  ;  could 
Cyprian  and  Augustine  have  had  their  way.     But  it 


A  PROTOeOL.  21 

was  not  to  be.  The  experiment  was  tried,  and  tried  on 
a  large  scale,  and  it  failed,  and  that  was  the  end  of  it ; 
there  is  nothing  more  to  be  said  or  to  be  attempted. 

Thus  what  the  flower-garden  was  to  the  argument 
from  design,  the  shattered  image  becomes  to  the  argu- 
ment from  despair.  The  experiment  of  unifying  the 
Church  on  the  plan  and  by  the  method  of  imperialism 
having  come  to  nought,  we  must,  forsooth,  sit  down 
with  folded  hands  convinced  that  because  Christen- 
dom is  to-day  divided,  divided  it  must  always  be. 
And  yet,  so  flagrant  are  the  practical  evils  of  denom- 
inationalism  as  a  system ;  so  foolish  does  the  awk- 
ward contrivance  look  when  we  attempt  to  carry  it 
to  the  heathen  ;  so  unsightly  in  real  life  is  the  result 
of  taking  it  for  granted  that  the  entreaties,  "  Be  ye 
all  of  one  mind,"  "  Mark  them  that  cause  divisions 
among  you,"  "  Love  as  brethren,"  were  never  meant 
to  be  literally  understood,  that  even  the  apologists  of 
things  as  they  are  begin  to  speak  in  broken  tones, 
and  to  murmur  under  their  breath  that  there  must 
be  some  more  excellent  way  if  only  it  could  be  found. 
Not  so  often  as  of  old  Is  the  voice  of  the  orator  heard 
on  public  days  exulting  over  the  number  of  the  spires 
in  an  American  village,  and  drawing  from  the  specta- 
cle his  bad  inference  that  competition  in  religion  is  as 
wholesome  as  in  trade.  As  the  battle  with  the  com- 
mon enemy  waxes  hot,  the  tactical  advantage  of  the 
"  moving  square  "  becomes  manifest.  Economic  con- 
siderations also  have  their  weight  in  the  mind  of  a 
people  naturally  thrifty,  and  common-sense  demands 


22  THE   PEACE   OF   THE   CHURCH. 

to  be  informed  why  it  should  be  necessary  to  keep 
three  or  four  sets  of  parochial  functionaries  in  pay, 
merely  to  enable  three  or  four  groups  of  fellow- 
townsmen,  who  differ  in  opinion  on  three  or  four 
points  of  belief  which  nobody  accounts  essential,  to 
enjoy  the  luxury  of  being  walled  off  from  one  another 
w^hile  they  say  their  prayers. 

It  is  no  slight  step  taken  towards  unity,  that  this 
mood  of  dissatisfaction  with  the  actual  state  of  things 
should  have  become  so  generally  prevalent.  Made 
aware  of  the  existence  of  his  ailment,  the  sick  man 
begins  to  bestir  himself  to  find  remedies  ;  so  long  as 
the  disease  lies  latent  there  is  nothing  to  prompt  his 
going  in  search  of  a  cure.  We  in  America  have  at 
last  reached  this  stage  of  solicitude.  For  a  long  while 
only  a  voice  here  and  a  voice  there  was  to  be  heard 
protesting  against  our  state  of  schism ;  but  now  the 
complainants  utter  themselves  in  chorus.  "  Give  peace 
in  our  time,"  has  become  common  prayer. 

The  practical  methods  of  attaining  the  desired  end 
are  reducible  under  three  heads  :  — 

First :  The  unconditional  surrender  of  all  to  one. 

Secondly:  Confederation  upon  equal  terms,  each 
denomination  preserving  its  own  proper  identity,  but 
entering  into  formal  counsel  with  the  others  with 
respect  to  all  common  interests. 

Thirdly:  Consolidation  under  one  self-consistent 
and  well  understood  system  of  polity  and  doctrine; 
with  ample  constitutional  guarantees  for  a  permitted 
diversity  in  the  methods  of  worship  and  of  work. 


A   PROTOCOL.  23 

To  a  study  of  the  comparative  merits  of  these  three 
methods,  which  for  the  sake  of  convenience  may  be 
given  the  catch-words  "  Submission,"  "  Confederation," 
and  "  Consolidation,"  I  propose  devoting  the  remain- 
der of  this  lecture. 

The  foremost  representative  of  the  doctrine  of  un- 
conditional surrender  as  the  only  proper  pathway 
to  unity  is  the  Church  of  Rome.  Let  American 
Christians,  of  whatever  name,  forthwith  give  in  their 
adhesion  to  the  self-styled  Queen  and  Mother  of  the 
Churches,  and  the  thing  is  done,  the  secret  of  reunion 
has  been  found,  the  problem  solved,  the  Ecclesia  Ameri- 
cana built.  There  is  a  simplicity  in  the  suggestion 
that  commends  it.  So  short  a  cross-path  to  his  desti- 
nation is  singularly  attractive  to  the  foot-sore  pilgrim, 
who  would  gladly,  if  he  might,  sing  his  last  song  of 
degrees,  and  enter  with  thanksgiving  the  city  that  is 
at  unity  in  itself.  But  the  maxim,  "  All  roads  lead 
to  Rome,"  does  not  apply  in  lands  severed  from  Italy 
by  the  pathless  sea,  and  certain  facts  both  of  ancient 
and  of  contemporary  history,  to  which  we  cannot 
shut  our  eyes,  make  dead  against  the  notion  that 
our  help  in  this  matter  is  coming  to  us  from  the 
seven  hills. 

The  Roman  claim,  subjected  to  analysis,  resolves 
itself  into  the  following  elements  :  (1)  The  a  priori 
necessity  of  one  visible  head,  if  the  Church  is  to  exist 
as  a  corporate  society  on  the  earth.  (2)  The  au- 
thority given  to  Peter  to  act  as  such  visible  head. 
(3)  The  transmission  by  Peter  to  his  successors  in 


24  THE  PEACE   OF   THE   CHURCH. 

the  see  of  Rome  of  the  visible  headship  that  was  his 
(4)  The  absence  of  rival  claimants  to  the  supremacy 

Supplementary  to  these  considerations,  which  bind 
the  whole  world  if  they  bind  anybody,  are  certain 
others,  supposed  to  be  specially  applicable  to  the 
United  States,  to  wit :  (5)  The  fact  of  the  discovery 
of  the  New  World  by  a  devout  Roman  Catholic,  sail- 
ing under  Roman  Catholic  auspices.  (6)  The  undis- 
puted ecclesiastical  jurisdiction  exercised  by  the  Holy 
Father  on  this  side  of  the  ocean  for  more  than  a 
hundred  years  before  any  dissentients  had  made  their 
appearance  here.  And  finally,  (7)  the  need  of  an  au- 
thority backed,  in  a  sense,  by  the  past  of  all  Europe, 
rather  than  by  the  traditions  of  only  a  single  nation^ 
if  spiritual  sovereignty  is  to  be  asserted  over  such  a 
medley  of  foreign  stocks  and  races  as  the  Republic  in 
this  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  has  become. 

It  is  manifestly  impossible  in  a  single  lecture  to 
enter  upon  an  exhaustive  examination  of  the  papal 
claims ;  but  I  can  and  will  indicate  briefly  the  weak 
points  of  the  arguments  to  which  I  have  just  referred. 
To  urge  that  a  visible  headship  is,  in  the  very  nature 
of  things,  essential  to  the  being  of  such  a  body  as  the 
Church  of  God  on  earth,  is  in  reality  to  beg  the  ques- 
tion at  issue.  When  St.  Paul  speaks  of  the  ascended 
Christ  as  having  been  made  "head  over  all  things  to 
the  Church,"  he  does  so  without  limitation  or  qualifi- 
cation. He  says  nothing  whatever  about  vicar  or 
vicegerent.  He  would  seem  to  have  been  haunted 
by  no  misgiving  as  to  the  impracticability  of  Christ's 


A  PROTOCOL.  25 

ruling  his  people  from  a  heavenly  throne.  So  far  as 
centres  of  administration  are  concerned,  he  betrays 
no  preference  for  one  over  another,  although  now 
and  then  the  special  personal  affection  for  Jerusalem 
proper  to  every  Hebrew  heart  asserts  itself. 

If,  indeed,  it  could  be  shown  that  executive  power 
is  never  efficiently  wielded  save  when  lodged  with  a 
dictator,  then  the  a  priori  argument  for  the  Papacy 
would  have  weight. 

But  the  facts  of  history  are  against  the  acceptance 
of  such  a  postulate.  Venice  under  her  Council  and 
France  under  her  Directory,  to  go  no  farther  afield, 
are  witnesses  that  administrative  ability  is  not  of 
necessity  beholden  solely  to  the  "one-man  power." 
Nothing  could  have  been  more  natural  than  for 
Romans,  born  under  the  Empire,  to  imagine  that  the 
new  society  they  saw  emerging  out  of  the  invisible 
would  never  attain  the  climax  of  efficiency  without  a 
recognized  and  localized  Imperator  ;  and  if  the  theory 
of  papal  origins  outlined  at  the  beginning  of  this 
lecture  be  the  true  one,  such  was  the  way  in  which 
they  did  actually  reason.  But  to  us  looking  at  the 
matter  in  the  light  of  the  Empire's  decline  and  fall, 
as  well  as  of  its  birth  and  growth,  it  is  by  no  means 
axiomatic  that  human  society  to  be  well  ordered  must 
needs  discover  and  acknowledge  in  some  one  mortal 
man  its  visible  controller.  The  universe  as  a  whole, 
so  Christians  believe,  is  governed  by  council.  We 
recognize  in  Deity  something  other  and  better  than 
the  bare  expression  of  singleness.     Why  then  assume 


26  THE   PEACE  OF   THE  CHURCH. 

that  of  necessity  the  oversight  of  the  Holy  Catholic 
Church  in  order  to  be  thorough  must  be  lodged  with 
a  solitary  potentate  ?  The  world  secular  is  to-day 
kept  in  tranquillity  by  forces  emanating  from  London, 
Paris,  Berlin,  St.  Petersburg,  and  Washington,  as 
completely  as  it  ever  was  when  all  power  centred  at 
Rome.  If  such  can  be  the  case  in  the  temporal  order, 
why  not  also  in  the  spiritual? 

But  what  if  our  Lord,  it  is  asked,  did  actually  give 
to  Simon  Peter  the  prerogative  of  supremacy  ?  Why 
then,  of  course,  for  Christians  the  case  is  closed,  and 
a  priori  reasons  either  for  or  against  become  at  once 
irrelevant.  We  pass  therefore  from  abstract  to  his- 
torical ground,  and  look  to  see  what  the  New  Testa- 
ment has  to  say,  or  may  be  supposed  to  say,  in  support 
of  the  Roman  claim.  It  would  seem  on  general  prin- 
ciples as  if  the  Epistles  credited  to  St.  Peter  himself 
ought  to  yield  the  desired  evidence.  The  encyclical 
letters  of  the  pontiffs  who  are  supposed  to  hold  from 
him  have  never  been  reticent  with  respect  to  prerog- 
ative; and  if  St.  Peter  was  conscious  of  possessing 
rights  of  supremacy  over  the  whole  Church,  nothing 
could  have  been  more  natural  than  that  the  fact  should 
leave  its  impress  on  his  correspondence.  And  yet  we 
look  in  vain  to  this  quarter  for  a  single  sentence  cor- 
roborative of  the  claims  of  the  Popes.  The  Apostle 
does  indeed  exhort  the  elders  of  the  Church,  but  he 
is  careful  to  do  it  as  one  who  is  "  also  an  elder."  In 
fact,  had  he  been  expressly  aiming  to  avoid  the  asser- 
tion of  an  authority  different  from  and  superior  to 


A  PROTOCOL.  27 

that  of  his  fellow  Apostles,  he  could  scarcely  have 
chosen  a  tone  better  fitted  for  his  purpose  than  that 
which  pervades  the  whole  range  of  his  writings.  A 
similar  poverty  of  allusion,  or  rather  entire  absence  of 
allusion,  to  the  Petrine  claim  is  observable  in  the 
other  Epistles  ;  and  when  it  comes  to  the  Book  of 
Acts,  Paul  is  so  clearly  the  hero  of  the  story  that 
Peter's  prominence  in  the  earlier  chapters  is  almost 
lost  out  of  mind  before  we  reach  the  end.  When  the 
case  has  been  narrowed  down,  as  it  must  be,  to  the 
four  Gospels,  we  discover  that  the  real  issue  hangs 
on  the  right  interpretation  of  three  palmary  passages ; 
that  which  records  Peter's  confession  of  Jesus  as  the 
Christ,  and  our  Lord's  answering  declaration  ;  ^  that 
in  which  Christ  assures  Peter  of  His  having  prayed 
for  him  that  his  faith  fail  not ;  ^  and  that  m  which, 
after  the  resurrection,  Christ  with  a  most  noticeable 
earnestness  exhorts  Peter  by  the  love  he  bears  Him, 
"Feed  my  sheep." ^ 

Upon  these  three  texts  the  Scriptural  argument  for 
the  Papacy  really  rests.  What  shall  we  say  to  them? 
Briefly  this,  that  so  far  as  the  earliest  commentators 
on  the  New  Testament  are  concerned,  the  Fathers  of 
the  primitive  Church,  the  weight  of  testimony  is 
wholly  against  the  papal  interpretation.  It  was  only 
after  the  Holy  See  had  established  itself  by  other 
means  that  there  was  read  into  these  passages   the 

1  St.  Matt.  xvi.  13-20  ;  St.  Mark  viii.  27-29  ;  St.  Luke  ix. 
18-20. 

2  St.  Luke  xxii.  31,  32.  «  St.  John  xxi.  15-18. 


28      THE  PEACE  OF  THE  CHURCH. 

sense  which  Roman  controversialists  now  allege  as 
the  only  proper  one.  In  the  case  of  the  first  of  the 
three  passages  some  of  the  Fathers  see  in  Christ's 
words  "  this  rock  "  an  allusion  to  Himself,  that  one 
foundation  other  than  which  no  man  can  lay  ;  some 
understand  it  to  signify  the  truth  of  our  Lord's  divin- 
ity to  which  Peter  had  just  borne  the  earliest  human 
witness ;  while  still  others  connect  the  promise  with 
those  providential  features  in  Peter's  personal  history 
which  made  him  the  first  stone  in  that  great  edifice, 
the  building  of  which  is  still  in  progress.  In  a  true 
sense  the  Church  began  with  Peter,  for  it  was  he  who 
led  at  Pentecost,  and  it  was  he  whose  first  use  of  "  the 
keys  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven"  threw  open  to  the 
nations  the  door  that  had  been  shut  against  them  so 
long.  But  Jerusalem  and  C^esarea,  not  Rome,  are 
the  geographical  names  we  associate  with  these 
greatest  of  the  acts  of  Peter ;  and  there  lies  a  wide 
gap  between  assent  to  the  primacy  of  this  foremost 
of  the  Twelve,  and  consent  to  the  doctrine  that 
dominion  has  been  given  to  the  Bishops  of  Rome  even 
to  the  end  of  the  world. 

The  fact  of  Peter's  leadership  among  the  disciples, 
in  itself  sufficiently  evidenced  by  the  position  given 
to  his  name  in  all  of  the  lists,  is  a  sufficient  clew  to 
the  meaning  of  the  second  of  the  great  papal  texts. 
Nothing  could  be  more  natural  than  the  singling 
out  for  special  prayer  the  man  who  had  been  bold  to 
say,"  Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  son  of  the  living  God,'* 
and  nothing  could  have  been  more  natural  than  to 


A  PROTOCOL.  29 

select  him  to  be  the  strengthener  of  his  brethren  in 
their  hour  of  need ;  but  that  this  strengthening  function 
was  not  peculiar  to  the  Apostle  Peter  is  evident  from 
its  being  associated  m  the  New  Testament  with  no 
fewer  than  four  of  St.  Peter's  colleagues  in  the  work 
of  evangelization. 

With  respect  to  the  scene  upon  the  shore  of  the 
sea  of  Tiberias,  where  Jesus  said  to  Simon  Peter  once, 
*'  Feed  my  lambs,"  twice,  "  Feed  my  sheep,"  the  last 
of  the  alleged  Gospel  evidences  in  behalf  of  the  Pa- 
pacy, it  would  seem  to  be  enough  simply  to  put  in 
contrast  the  view  wdiich  sees  in  it  an  exclusive  be- 
stowal of  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction,  and  that  which 
discerns,  rather,  a  singularly  tender  and  touching  sug- 
gestion of  a  duty  that  appertains  to  every  shepherd 
of  souls  as  such.  Peter  had  three  times  denied  his 
Master ;  three  times,  therefore,  does  the  Master  re- 
establish Peter  in  his  pastoral  office ;  but  His  doing 
so  in  no  sense  disestablishes  the  rest.  If  any  mystical 
and  symbolic  inference  with  respect  to  the  perpetual 
government  of  the  Church  is  to  be  forced  out  of  this 
beautiful  closing  chapter  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  it 
would  seem  as  if  St.  John,  rather  than  St.  Peter, 
ought  to  have  the  benefit  of  it,  for  of  him  are  those 
strange  words  written,  "  If  I  will  that  he  tarry  till  I 
come,  what  is  that  to  thee  ?"  If  this  thing  had  been 
said  of  Simon  Peter,  what  volumes  of  rhetoric  might  it 
not  have  furnished  to  the  upholders  of  the  papal  claim? 

But  the  Roman  Catholic  argument  from  the  New 
Testament  is  supplemented  by  another  from  tradition. 


30  THE  PEACE  OF  THE  CHURCH. 

St.  Peter,  we  are  assured,  was  the  first  bishop  of 
Rome,  and  as  such  transmitted  his  plenary  powers 
to  those  who  have  succeeded  him  in  that  see,  from 
Linus,  the  first,  to  Leo  XIIL,  the  latest  of  them. 

Protestant  writers  who  spend  their  strength  in  try- 
ing to  prove  that  St.  Peter  never  was  at  Rome  make 
a  mistake.  Yery  possibly  they  are  right ;  but  it  is  pro- 
verbially hard  to  prove  a  negative,  and  in  making  so 
much  effort  to  demonstrate  this  particular  negative 
they  betray  a  misgiving  that  unless  it  can  be  done 
the  case  is  lost.  Even  when  it  has  been  conceded 
that  St.  Peter,  in  the  course  of  his  travels,  may  have 
visited  Rome,  it  by  no  means  follows  that  he  was 
either  the  exclusive  founder  or  the  first  bishop  of  the 
Roman  Church.  St.  Paul  prided  himself  on  never 
trespassing  on  the  missionary  fields  of  other  Apostles. 
But  we  have  among  St.  Paul's  writings  a  letter  to 
the  Church  of  the  Romans.  Would  he  have  been 
likely  to  write  his  Epistle  had  there  been  a  bishop 
in  charge  at  Rome  ?  And  supposing  that  bishop  to 
have  been  no  less  a  dignitary  than  the  Apostle  Peter, 
should  we  find  no  reference  made  to  him  in  the  long 
list  of  salutations  with  which  the  writer  closes  his 
communication  ? 

An  early  author  of  repute  (Irenseus)  makes  St.  Peter 
and  St.  Paul  jointly  the  founders  of  the  Roman  Church. 
According  to  him,  Linus  was  the  first  bishop  of  the 
series,  not  the  second,  and  received  his  commission 
at  the  hands  of  both  of  the  great  Apostles.  A  happy 
omen  this  of  the  better  day  to  come,  when  St.  Peter, 


A  PROTOCOL.  31 

as  the  representative  of  ecclesiastical  order,  and  St. 
Paul,  as  the  representative  of  the  freedom  that  comes 
with  faith,  shall  strike  hands  in  that  "  Holy  Catholic 
Church  "  in  which,  spite  of  all  set-backs  and  discour- 
agements, those  who  say  the  Apostles'  Creed  continue 
to  believe.^ 

But  it  is  still  further  urged  that,  in  the  absence  of 
any  other  claimant,  Rome  ought  to  hold  supremacy 
by  virtue  of  her  being,  so  to  speak,  the  residuary 
legatee.  If  Jerusalem,  or  Antioch,  or  even  Alexan- 
dria had  maintained  an  unbroken  line  of  bishops 
from  the  beginning,  there  might  be  grounds  for  par- 
titioning the  sovereignty  among  all  the  survivors,  but 
inasmuch  as  Rome  is  actually  the  only  survivor,  ought 
not  the  whole  inheritance  to  be  hers  ?2, 

Yes,  perhaps  so,  if  we  can  agree  about  what  the 
inheritance  is.  If  it  be  simply  an  inheritance  of  fair 
fame,  certainly  all  who  value  what  is  ancient  for  its 
own  sake,  and  who  hold  that  what  is  time-honored 
ought  to  be  by  man  honored  as  well,  will  concede  the 
thing  asked  for  not  only  cheerfully  but  thankfully. 
There  never  has  been  a  time  when  the  Church  of 
Rome,  if  content  to  be  the  Church  of  Rome,  would 
not  have  received  from  the  rest  of  Christendom  her 

1  For  an  admirable  summary  of  the  heads  of  the  Roman  con- 
troversy, see  Dr.  Salmon's  "  Infallibility  of  the  Church,"  a  work 
characterized  by  the  late  Von  Dollinger  as  one  of  the  great  polem- 
ical achievements  of  the  century. 

2  See  "  A  Letter  to  his  Grace  the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  on  occasion 
of  Mr.  Gladstone's  recent  Expostulation,"  by  John  Henry  New- 
man, D.D.,  of  the  Oratory,  London,  1875,  p  26,  §  3. 


32       THE  PEACE  OF  THE  CHl/RCH. 

full  measure  of  respect.  It  is  not  against  the  Church 
of  Rome,  it  is  against  the  self-styled  Mother  and  Mis- 
tress of  all  the  Churches  that  we  have  made  war,  or 
rather  are  defending  ourselves. 

But  just  as  the  disproof  of  the  Scriptural  argument 
for  the  supremacy  of  St.  Peter  turned  the  flank  of  the 
argument  from  tradition,  so  the  disproof  of  the  aprioy^i 
argument  for  the  necessity  of  a  single  visible  headship 
over  the  Church,  may  be  said  to  have  anticipated  the 
defeat  of  this  argument  from  survival.  If  it  could  be 
proved  that  the  Church  absolutely  required  for  its  ef- 
ficiency the  recognition  of  a  supreme  Pontiff,  why  then 
the  fact  that  there  lived  within  our  horizon  only  one 
pretender  to  the  post  would  unquestionably  make  the 
claim  of  such  survivor  a  very  strong  one.  But  if,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  supposition  in  question  be,  as  we 
have  seen  that  it  is,  a  wholly  gratuitous  one,  why  then 
Rome's  cry,  "  Come  unto  me,  for  there  is  none  other 
whom  it  is  possible  for  you  to  seek,"  falls  dead. 

There  remain  to  be  considered  the  supplementary 
arguments  that  are  supposed  to  make  Rome's  conten- 
tion a  particularly  strong  one  in  the  case  of  the 
United  States. 

It  is  hardly  possible  to  take  seriously  the  argument 
that  because  Christopher  Columbus  was  a  Roman 
Catholic,  therefore  all  of  us  who  occupy  the  new  world 
he  discovered  ought  to  be  of  his  religion.  In  the  fif- 
teenth century  all  Europe  was  under  the  Papacy ; 
the  note  of  revolt  had  not  yet  been  sounded,  and  if 
America  was  to  be  discovered  by  a  European  it  must 


A  PROTOCOL.  33 

needs  be  a  Roman  Catholic  who  should  discover  it. 
The  planting  of  the  cross  on  the  soil  of  San  Salvador 
was  indeed  an  act  of  high  significance ;  but  the  Papacy 
can  scarcely  claim  an  exclusive  interest  in  the  cross, 
a  symbol  that  had  acquired  its  significance  long  before 
St.  Peter  is  alleged  even  to  have  seen  Rome. 

The  claim  founded  upon  a  long  continued  assertion 
of  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction  in  the  New  World,  would 
carry  greater  weight  in  this  connection  than  it  does, 
if  it  could  be  shown  that  the  jurisdiction  was  ever  to 
any  considerable  extent  either  exercised  or  acknowl- 
edged on  the  Atlantic  seaboard  in  the  colonial  period ; 
or  in  other  words,  had  the  people  who  in  1789  consti- 
tuted themselves  a  republic,  ever  recognized  the  right 
of  the  Roman  Pontiff  to  reign  over  them.  We  know 
that  the  contrary  was  notoriously  the  fact.  Perhaps  a 
moiety  of  the  Marylanders  were  Roman  Catholic  ;  but 
over  against  these  stood  multitudes  whose  very  pres- 
ence here  was  owing  to  their  hatred  of  whatever  even 
so  much  as  approximated  to  the  religion  of  Rome. 
In  the  Spanish  possessions,  and  in  what  had  been  the 
French,  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  had  an  unques- 
tioned foothold  ;  but  Canada  and  Florida  lay  beyond 
the  limits  of  the  Republic,  and  what  was  true  of  them 
was  not  true  of  it.  Substantially  this  was  an  Eng- 
lishman's country  when  it  set  out  upon  its  course, 
and  it  was  England  that  had  been  "  the  bulwark  of 
the  Reformation." 

Yes,  the  Roman  Catholic  replies,  an  Englishman's 
country  it  was  once,  but  an   Englishman's   country 

3 


34  THE  PEACE   OF   THE   CHURCH. 

it  long  ago  ceased  to  be.  Europe  has  poured  itself 
into  America,  and  to-day  what  is  needed  to  effect 
the  unifying  process  is  such  a  power  as  can  appeal 
to  memories  that  are  common  to  all  the  national- 
ities of  the  Old  World.  There  is  no  such  power, 
save  the  Papacy. 

The  answer  to  this  is  two-fold.  A  reconciliation 
imposed  upon  us  from  abroad  and  by  an  extraneous 
power  is  not  the  sort  of  reconciliation  of  which  we 
are  in  search.  As  a  people,  we  think  that  we  can 
best  settle  our  family  quarrel  among  ourselves.  But 
aside  from  this,  is  there  not  good  reason  to  think  that 
the  extent  of  the  Europeanizing  process  covered  by 
the  last  fifty  years  has  been  grossly  exaggerated  ?  It 
is  true  that  there  has  been  an  immense  infusion  of 
foreign  blood ;  but  is  it  true  that  this  has  sufficed 
really  to  overmaster  the  original  strain?  There  is 
good  authority  for  the  statement  that  of  the  people 
now  inhabiting  the  territory  of  the  United  States 
considerably  more  than  half  are  the  direct  descend- 
ants of  grandparents  or  great-grandparents  who 
were  living  here  in  the  year  1800.  Moreover,  law 
and  language  are  forces  that  link  us  almost  indis- 
solubly  to  an  English  past.  Our  common  law  is 
English.  The  "  free  institutions  "  of  which  we  are 
so  proud  are  of  English  parentage.  Above  all,  our 
speech  is  English.  The  affectionate  appeals  of  the 
Holy  Father  calling  us  back  to  our  allegiance  have 
to  be  translated.  The  ring  of  the  sentences  is  so- 
norous, but  our  ears  miss  the  mother  element.     The 


A  PROTOCOL.  35 

children  of  our  public  schools,  from  whatever  quarter 
of  the  globe  they  may  have  come,  are  taught  to  think, 
to  speak,  to  write  in  English.  Sentences  from  the 
great  masters  of  English  letters,  snatches  of  English 
oratory,  couplets  of  English  verse  creep  into  their 
minds,  and  stay  there  moulding  thought  and  action 
in  a  thousand  unsuspected  ways.  The  importance  of 
this  fact  it  is  quite  impossible  to  overstate.  Here 
and  there  in  the  vast  stretch  of  our  possessions  little 
areas  are  to  be  found  where  bi-lingual  education  has 
to  be  tolerated  for  a  time ;  but  it  is  only  for  a  time. 
The  English  language  has  a  grasp  upon  this  country 
that  can  by  no  means  be  shaken  off,  and  even  race 
distinctions,  deeply  rooted  as  they  are,  must  sooner  or 
later  inevitably  yield  to  the  formative  touch  of  this 
all-conquering  tongue.  As  yet,  the  Roman  ecclesias- 
tics and  theologians,  born  Roman,  have  not  acquired 
the  power  of  writing  English  with  much  force.  In 
this  department  of  their  propaganda  they  have  been 
dependent  on  recruits  from  the  Anglican  ranks.  Un- 
til they  shall  have  acquired  this  gift  of  utterance,  the 
mere  fact  that  the  population  of  the  United  States, 
classified  by  its  race  affinities,  represents  the  whole  of 
Europe,  will  not  greatly  help  their  missionary  effort. 

I  have  thought  it  right  to  deal  thus  promptly  with 
the  Roman  Catholic  claims,  for  the  simple  reason  that 
if  these  are  valid,  any  further  discussion  of  means 
and  methods  must  prove  superfluous.  If  our  first 
duty  as  Christians  be  to  obey  the  voice  that  says  to 
us  from  Peter's  chair,  "  Come  unto  me,"  why  then 


36      THE  PEACE  OF  THE  CHURCH. 

the  ease  is  closed.  America,  on  that  supposition,  has 
only  to  do  what  England  did  when  Queen  Mary  suc- 
ceeded to  King  Edward,  namely,  to  haul  down  the 
flag  of  the  Reformation,  and  to  give  up  the  ship. 

There  is,  however,  an  alternative  form  of  uncon- 
ditional surrender  to  which  I  ought  perhaps  to  make 
at  least  a  passing  reference  before  we  take  our  final 
leave  of  this  first  of  the  three  theories  of  unity,  the 
theory  of  submission.  There  are  a  few  souls  san- 
guine enough  to  imagine  it  possible  that  the  absolute 
submission  refused  to  the  Roman  Pontiff,  may  still 
be  secured  at  the  dictate  of  the  Anglican  Episcopacy. 
Let  all  dissentients  at  once  give  in  their  allegiance 
to  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church ;  conform  to  the 
canons  of  the  General  Convention,  and  consent  to 
worship  publicly  no  otherwise  than  in  accordance 
with  the  rubrics  of  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  and 
the  thing  is  done.  We  have  our  Church  of  America 
off-hand  and  without  vexatious  delay.  But  if  Angli- 
canism pure  and  simple,  with  all  the  adventitious  aids 
it  enjoys  in  the  land  of  its  birth,  with  all  the  charm 
that  ancient  architecture  can  lend  and  all  the  pres- 
tige old  national  traditions  and  long  inherited  titles 
avail  to  foster,  has  nevertheless  failed  to  keep  within 
one  fold  even  the  half  of  the  people  of  Great  Britain, 
is  it  to  be  supposed  that  any  new  summons,  issued  at 
this  late  day,  "  Go  to,  become  forthwith  what  we 
are,"  is  likely  to  win  submission. 

Happily  it  has  ceased  to  be  any  longer  necessary  to 
argue  seriously  against  this  form  of  the  doctrine  of  un- 


A  PROTOCOL.  37 

conditional  surrender,  for  the  reason  that  the  bishops 
of  the  English-speaking  race,  in  council  assembled, 
have  themselves  given  it  a  quietus.  By  the  Declaration 
set  forth  at  Chicago  in  1886,  and  ratified  at  Lambeth 
in  1888,  the  Anglican  Communion  throughout  the 
world  committed  itself,  so  far  as  by  the  voice  of  its 
chief  pastors  it  could  be  committed,  to  a  far  larger 
and  more  generous  platform  of  unity  than  any  of 
which  the  framers  of  the  Act  of  Uniformity  ever 
dreamed.  But  I  am  anticipating  matters  by  this 
reference.  I  was  led  into  making  it  because  other- 
wise our  study  of  the  various  phases  of  the  submission 
doctrine  would  have  been  incomplete. 

We  have  next  to  consider  the  theory  of  ecclesias- 
tical unity  through  confederation,  the  second  of  the 
three  methods  that  have  found  advocates.  The  con- 
federative  theory  contemplates  some  such  combina- 
tion of  the  various  religious  bodies  of  the  land  as 
would  exist  in  the  case  of  labor  unions,  were  there  a 
single  General  Assembly  empowered  to  legislate  for 
them  all  in  matters  of  common  interest,  while  yet 
each  separate  union  retained  control  over  the  affairs 
of  its  own  trade.  Under  this  scheme  denomination- 
al ism  would  not  cease  to  be,  but  its  more  flagrant 
evils  might  conceivably  be  diminished;  the  conduct  of 
missions,  for  example,  being  relegated  to  the  General 
Assembly,  and  the  heathen  thus  saved  the  scandal  of 
being  called  to  look  upon  a  piebald  Christianity.  In 
short  "  confederation  "  is  but'  another  name  for  some 


88  THE  PEACE  OF  THE   CHURCH. 

modus  Vivendi  under  which  we  might  live  along  to- 
gether very  much  as  we  are  living  now,  only  in  rather 
pleasanter  mutual  relations  than  at  present,  with  more 
of  concert  and  with  less  of  friction.  That  the  pro- 
posal has  a  certain  plausibility  upon  the  face  of  it, 
it  is  needless  to  deny.  It  has  the  great  advantage  of 
involving  a  minimum  of  change.  So  deep  rooted  have 
our  denominational  traditions  grown  to  be,  so  vast  are 
the  property  interests  at  stake,  so  complicated  is  the 
network  of  missionary  and  educational  enterprise  to 
which  the  various  religious  bodies  stand  committed, 
that  any  scheme  of  unity  which  proposes  at  the  outset 
to  hold  all  these  things  harmless  and  to  ensure  their 
integrity  for  an  indefinite  time  future,  is  sure  to  win 
at  least  a  momentary  approval. 

But  confederation  weighed  in  the  balances  is  found 
wanting.  In  itself  considered,  it  is  the  weakest  of  all 
the  forms  of  unity,  and  the  least  stable.  Its  proper 
symbol  is  the  fagot,  which  has  unity  indeed,  but 
unity  of  a  very  precarious  sort,  fragile,  ill-compacted, 
easily  terminable.  The  parts  of  a  confederacy  are 
mechanically  not  chemically  combined  ;  they  hold 
together  less  by  affinity  than  by  cohesion.  Confeder- 
acy has  no  power  to  weather  tribulation,  the  mere 
touch  of  trouble  makes  shipwreck  of  it.  We  Ameri- 
cans tried  confederation  as  our  first  experiment  in 
the  direction  of  national  unity ;  and  a  very  poor  thing 
we  found  it.  Our  Constitution  grew  directly  out  of 
a  desire  for  "  a  more  perfect  union  "  than  the  mere 
bundling  process  of  confederation  could  bring  to  pass. 


A  PROTOCOL.  39 

In  fact,  there  are  no  two  words  in  the  political  vocabu- 
lary of  Americans  more  conspicuously  ill-omened  than 
"  confederacy  "  and  "  confederation."  They  are  words 
synonymous  with  transitoriness  and  failure ;  no 
slightest  promise  of  permanence  is  to  be  found  in 
them.  If  all  this  be  true  of  the  confederative  idea  as 
it  stands  related  to  national  interests  and  the  life  of 
states,  how  much  more  impracticable  is  the  applica- 
tion of  the  principle  to  our  ecclesiastical  condition. 
If  the  confederation  of  communities  each  of  which 
occupies  a  well-ascertained  geographical  area,  and 
has  a  certain  personal  identity  of  its  own,  is  a  thing 
compassed  about  with  difficulty,  what  shall  we  say  to 
a  scheme  that  proposes  to  bind  together  by  treaty 
ties  social  organizations  that  already  cover  the  same 
space,  and  recognize  no  territorial  boundary  lines  ? 

We  can  imagine  France  resolving  itself  into  a  con- 
federacy, and  giving  to  each  one  of  its  present  De- 
partments a  sovereignty  of  its  own.  Such  an  act 
would  be  a  step  backward,  but  it  is  conceivable.  Is 
it  conceivable,  however,  that  the  French,  in  despair 
over  their  partisan  condition,  should  vote  to  allow  the 
adherents  of  each  of  the  great  parties  to  organize 
according  to  its  own  notion  of  political  wisdom,  —  the 
Bonapartists  carrying  on  an  empire,  the  Legitimists 
an  absolute  monarchy,  the  Orleanists  a  limited  mon- 
archy, the  Moderates  a  republic,  and  the  Reds  a  com- 
mune, all  at  the  same  time,  and  within  the  limits  of 
the  same  France,  —  provided  only  they  agree  to  fash- 
ion themselves  into  a  confederation  ?    This  is  really, 


40  THE  PEACE  OF   THE   CHURCH. 

when  we  look  the  facts  in  the  face,  what  Christian 
Unity  would  mean  here  in  America  under  a  scheme  of 
denominational  confederation.  It  would  be  an  attempt 
to  knit  together  for  working  purposes  methods  of 
polity  that  from  the  very  nature  of  things  cannot 
co-exist  in  one  and  the  same  system.  It  would  be  a 
clearing-house,  not  a  Church. 

Denominational  confederation  has  been  ably  urged 
upon  us  under  the  attractive  phrase,  ''  The  United 
Churches  of  the  United  States."  ^  If  one  might  be 
permitted  to  drop  out  two  letters  from  this  taking 
title,  so  that  it  should  read  "  The  United  Church  of 
the  United  States,"  the  words  would  then  express  the 
very  thing  we  need.  But  the  lurking  fallacy  in  the 
expression  as  it  stands  is  this ;  a  parallelism  is  sug- 
gested which  does  not  exist.  The  "  States  "  that 
make  up  the  national  Union  are  territorial  and  social 
entities,  each  of  which  has  its  well-defined  metes  and 
bounds  ;  whereas  the  Churches  out  of  which  it  is  pro- 
posed to  construct  the  ecclesiastical  Union  are  bodies 
of  men  scattered,  with  a  greater  or  less  evenness 
of  distribution,  over  the  whole  country,  and,  what  is 
still  more  to  the  point,  each  of  them  organized  with 

1  See  "  The  United  Churches  of  the  United  States,"  by  the 
Rev.  Charles  W.  Shields,  D.  D.,  in  the  "  Century  Magazine  "  for 
November,  1885.  The  allusion  in  the  text  must  by  no  means  be 
understood  as  indicating  any  failure  on  the  writei-'s  part  to  appre- 
ciate the  immense  value  of  the  service  rendered  by  Professor 
Shields  to  the  cause  of  Christian  unity.  Moreover,  in  simple  jus- 
tice to  him,  it  should  be  added,  that  in  a  later  article  (Sept.  1890)  he 
has  silently  modified  his  phrase  in  the  very  manner  above  projjosed. 


A  PROTOCOL.  41 

a  view  to  ministering  to  the  spiritual  needs  of  the 
whole  country.  If  the  supposed  case  of  the  confed- 
erated labor-unions  be  urged  as  furnishing  a  more 
serviceable  analogy,  the  reply  is  obvious,  that  the 
various  trades  although  not  segregated  in  space  are 
segregated  as  respects  the  ends  they  have  severally 
in  view.  They  have  therefore  a  certain  separateness 
that  makes  confederation  possible.  The  Bricklayers* 
Union  aspires  to  do  all  the  bricklaying,  and  the  Car- 
penters' Union  aspires  to  do  all  the  joinery-work 
needed  by  the  people  of  the  United  States.  The 
bricklayers  have  no  desire  to  touch  a  single  stick  of 
timber,  nor  do  the  carpenters  wish  to  lay  a  single 
brick.  Not  such  is  the  case  as  it  stands  between  the 
Baptists  and  the  Presbyterians.  The  Baptists  have  it 
for  their  aim,  so  far  as  in  them  lies,  to  make  Christians 
of  all  the  people  of  the  land  ;  and  the  Presbyterians 
have  it  for  their  aim  to  do  the  very  same  thing. 
Unless  they  can  find  a  better  sort  of  unity  than  "  con- 
federation "  offers,  they  must  from  the  very  nature  of 
the  case  continue  what  they  are  now,  rivals  in  the 
same  field,  competitive  rather  than  co-operant. 

With  "  submission  "  and  "  confederation,"  both  of 
them  discarded,  there  remains  as  a  final  resort  the 
method  of  consolidation ;  more  fully  defined  already 
as  a  union  under  one  self-consistent  and  well-under- 
stood system  of  polity  and  doctrine,  with  ample  con- 
stitutional guarantees  for  a  permitted  diversity  in  the 
methods  of  worship  and  of  work.  The  theory  of  con- 
solidation differs  from  the  theory  of  submission  which 


42       THE  PEACE  OF  THE  CHURCH. 

it  may  be  charged  with  resembling  in  this,  that  al- 
though it  does  undoubtedly  presuppose  the  selection 
of  one  denomination  from  among  the  rest  to  form 
a  rallying  centre,  it  provides  at  the  same  time  for  the 
generous  inclusion  and  careful  conservation  of  what- 
ever the  re-entering  companies  of  believers  count  most 
precious  among  their  heirlooms.  Every  one  of  the 
great  denominations  has  its  own  hallowed  memories, 
its  own  roll  of  martyrs,  its  own  cherished  manner  of 
worship,  its  own  long-tried  methods  of  missionary 
work,  above  all  its  own  revered  type  of  Christian 
character.  There  is  no  reason  why  sudden  violence 
should  be  done  to  these  sacred  things.  The  theory 
of  submission  would  compel  their  prompt  abandon- 
ment. The  theory  of  consolidation  supposes  not 
only  their  permitted  but  their  constitutionally  guarded 
continuance.  Take  divine  service,  for  example  ;  con- 
solidation would  not  involve  the  displacement  of  ex- 
temporaneous methods  of  worship  among  those  who 
value  them,  by  an  insistence  upon  either  the  Missal 
or  the  Prayer-book,  but  on  the  contrary  would  guard 
the  preferences  of  the  non-liturgical  families  in  the 
one  household  as  jealously  as  it  would  protect  those 
whose  traditions  were  of  the  other  sort.  There  would 
be  nothing  to  forbid  the  recognition,  in  a  truly  Catho- 
lic American  Church,  of  a  Puritan  rite,  an  Anglican 
rite,  a  Latin  rite,  and  a  German  rite.  Such  diversities 
of  method  in  the  line  of  worship  might  perfectly  well 
co-exist  under  one  general  and  comprehensive  scheme 
of  polity.     Such  titles  as  "  Episcopalian,"  and  "  Pres- 


A  PROTOCOL.  43 

byteriaii,"  and  "  Congregationalist "  would  have  to  go 
by  the  board,  because  these  would  indicate  a  real 
schism  in  the  body,  a  state  of  things  like  that  just  now 
supposed  in  the  case  of  a  re-organized  France ;  but 
the  disappearance  of  these  names  would  by  no  means 
necessarily  involve  the  loss  of  anything  that  is  really 
l»recious  in  the  spiritual  possessions  of  the  communions 
at  present  burdened  with  them.  In  fact  it  would  be  a 
distinct  impoverishment,  rather  than  a  gain,  were  we  to 
lose  the  fine  types  of  character  which  the  denominations 
I  have  mentioned  have  severally  cultivated  and  ma- 
tured. We  should  be  merging  our  differences  to  little 
purpose,  if  in  the  process  we  were  to  forfeit  any  con- 
siderable portion  of  the  treasures  accumulated  by  the 
several  tribes  during  their  years  of  exile  and  separa- 
tion. In  the  Catholic  Church  of  America  there  must 
be  room  for  the  stern  virtues  of  the  Covenanter,  as 
well  as  for  the  gentler  qualities  that  make  the  devout 
follower  of  George  Fox  lovable,  and  the  Anglican 
type  of  sainthood  attractive.  True  catholicity  can 
never  come  about  as  the  result  of  either  an  eclectic 
or  a  levelling  process.  There  is  nothing  manufactured 
or  artificial  about  it.  It  never  was  or  will  be  made 
to  order.  It  manifests  itself  spontaneously  and  grows 
as  the  flowers  grow,  when  once  the  multitude  of  the 
brethren  consent  to  dwell  together  in  unity.  How, 
then,  can  even  so  much  as  a  beginning  be  made? 
Supposing  what  I  have  called  consolidation  upon  a 
definite  and  well-understood  basis,  or,  as  it  might  be 
otherwise    expressed,   crystaUization    about    a  fixed 


44  THE  PEACE   OF   THE  CHURCH. 

nucleus,  to  have  been  accepted  as  the  true  principle ; 
by  what  law  of  natural  or  spiritual  selection  can  we 
imagine  the  desired  discrimination  wrought,  the 
right  basis  or  nucleus  determined  ?  We  can  think  of 
various  possible  criteria,  by  aid  of  which  a  decision 
might  be  reached,  if  only  all  could  be  counted  upon  to 
acquiesce  in,  and  to  abide  by  the  result.  There  is, 
for  example,  the  criterion  of  antiquity.  Were  this 
test  accepted  (as,  taken  by  itself,  it  certainly  would 
not  be),  the  question  would  be  narrowed  down  to  a 
choice  between  the  Episcopal  and  the  Roman  Catholic 
Churches,  both  of  which  bodies  have  an  historic  life 
that  antedates  the  Reformation.  Again,  there  is  the 
criterion  of  numbers, —  a  favorite  standard  of  judg- 
ment with  all  democracies.  Were  this  accepted,  the 
Methodists  or  the  Baptists  would  have  claims  such  as 
no  competing  organizations  could  dispute.  Yet  again, 
Congregationalists  and  Presbyterians  might  very 
properly  plead  the  large  influence  their  ideas  have 
exercised  upon  the  growth  of  American  institutions, 
as  a  reason  why  one  or  other  of  them  should  be  taken 
as  the  basis  of  the  United  Church.  Between  them 
these  two  bodies  dominated  the  period  of  the  Eng- 
lish Commonwealth,  and  if  the  Republic  be,  as  in  a 
real  sense  and  in  a  certain  measure  it  undoubtedly 
is,  the  child  of  the  Commonwealth  and  the  heir  of  its 
political  philosophy,  that  in  itself  is  a  strong  prima 
facie  argument  in  favor  of  entrusting  our  ecclesiasti- 
cal destinies  to  the  same  hands  that  under  God  have 
so  largely  shaped  our  national  and  civil  fortunes. 


A  PROTOCOL.  45 

But  even  supposing  ourselves  to  have  reached  a 
point  where  we  acknowledge  that  a  choice  between 
these  various  rallying  centres  is  desirable,  there  still 
remains  the  stubborn  question,  Who  is  to  choose  ? 
There  is  no  dictator  who  can  settle  the  point  by 
throwing  his  sword  into  the  scale ;  for  we  have  agreed 
that  this  is  a  matter  to  which  the  sword  is  wholly 
irrelevant,  and  we  have  ruled  dictators  out  of  court. 
Resort  to  the  ballot  would  be  ludicrous,  and  a  general 
election  impossible.  The  putting  of  the  Roman  Em- 
pire up  at  auction  w^as  a  scandal,  but  the  sending  of 
all  Christians  to  the  polls  to  vote  upon  a  proposed 
constitution  for  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  would  be 
a  greater. 

No,  there  is  nothing  to  be  done,  but  for  each  of  the 
existing  organizations  of  those  within  our  borders 
who  profess  and  call  themselves  Christians,  to  apply 
itself  to  the  study  of  the  problem,  and  having  done 
so  to  set  forth  in  the  fewest  and  plainest  words  pos- 
sible, the  result  of  its  thinking.  Let  us  hear  from 
each  denomination  what,  in  its  deliberate  judgment,  is 
the  most  generous  platform  of  union  it  can  conscien- 
tiously offer  to  the  rest.  Once  in  possession  of  these 
ultimata  our  American  Christendom  as  a  whole  will 
be  in  a  far  better  condition  to  form  a  judgment  than 
it  is  to-day.  When  it  is  found,  as  doubtless  it  will 
be  found,  that  the  resemblances  between  the  various 
formulas  of  concord  are  far  more  striking  than  the 
differences,  such  a  cry  for  unity  will  go  up  from  the 
whole  nation  as  shall  assuredly  enter  into  the  ears  of 


46  THE  PEACE  OF  THE  CHURCH. 

the  Lord  of  Sabaoth  and  bring  the  answer  He  alone 
can  give. 

One  of  our  denominations,  as  it  happens,  has  done 
this  very  thing  already,  and  is  first  in  the  field  with 
its  suggestion  of  the  true  basis  of  unity.  The  sugges- 
tion may  be  a  mistaken  one.  There  may  inhere  in  it 
some  fatal  logical  or  historical  flaw.  It  claims  no 
note  of  infallibility,  but  as  a  suggestion  it  has  at  least 
one  merit,  the  merit  of  having  been  made. 

The  Chicago-Lambeth  platform,  as  it  may  fairly 
enough  be  called,  sets  forth  that  the  data  essential  to 
the  establishment  of  a  visible  unity  among  Christians 
are  as  follows  :  — 

First.  The  Holy  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and  New 
Testament  as  containing  all  things  necessary  to  Sal- 
vation, and  as  being  the  rule  and  ultimate  standard  of 
faith. 

Secondly.  The  Apostles'  Creed  as  the  Baptismal 
symbol ;  and  the  Nicene  Creed,  as  the  sufficient  state- 
ment of  the  Christian  Faith. 

Thirdly.  The  two  Sacraments  ordained  by  Christ 
Himself,  —  Baptism  and  the  Supper  of  the  Lord, — 
ministered  with  unfailing  use  of  Christ's  words  of 
institution,  and  of  the  elements  ordained  by  Him. 

Fourthly.  The  Historic  Episcopate,  locally  adapted 
in  the  methods  of  its  administration  to  the  varying 
needs  of  the  nations  and  peoples  called  of  God  into 
the  unity  of  his  Church.^ 

This  is  the  answer  of  the  Bishops  of  the  Anglican 

^  Official  Report  of  the  Lambeth  Conference  of  1888,  p.  86. 


A  PROTOCOL.  47 

faith  and  order  throughout  the  world  to  the  question, 
What  do  Anglicans  account  the  minimum  of  agree- 
ment prerequisite  to  any  practical  steps  toward  the 
achievement  of  a  bona  fide  unity  ?  My  purpose  in 
these  lectures  will  be  to  unfold  the  contents  of  this 
utterance  of  theirs,  and  to  set  forth  as  clearly  as 
possible  the  bearings  of  it.  Firmly  persuaded  myself 
of  the  solidity  of  the  ground  taken  by  the  Bishops,  I 
do  not  pretend  to  an  attitude  of  indifferentism,  but 
frankly  confess  myself  an  advocate.  It  is  needless  to 
say  that  I  speak  with  no  authority  other  than  that  of 
one  who  has  given  the  subject  patient  thought.  In 
the  last  resort  the  Bishops  must  be  their  own  inter- 
preters ;  no  commentator  can  force  a  meaning  upon 
their  words  which  they  themselves  are  unwilling  to 
avow.  And  yet  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  the 
general  judgment  of  mankind  is  but  the  aggregate 
of  the  personal  judgments  of  the  members  of  the 
race  ;  and  however  valueless  a  solitary  expression 
of  opinion  or  belief  may  seem,  those  who  sit  over 
against  the  treasury  of  truth  do  ill  to  flout  it 
altogether. 

The  coral  insect  lives  and  dies  far  down  under  the 
surface  of  the  sea.  A  tiny  speck  of  solid  substance 
hidden  out  of  sight  is  all  his  memorial.  By  and  by, 
overhead  there  rises  up  an  island  ;  groves  of  palm 
are  6n  it ;  birds  build  their  nests  there,  and  at  last 
men  their  homes. 


II. 

THE  ARCHIVES. 


The  Christian  character  in  its  completeness  is  the  result  and  outgrowth 
of  all  that  series  of  events  of  which  the  Bible  is  in  part,  but  in  the  most  im- 
portant part,  the  record  .  .  .  The  Bible  exhibits  it  in  various  stages,  in 
various  forms,  not  always  perfect,  yet  always  going  on  to  what  is  higher 
and  purer,  and  shown  to  us  at  last,  after  the  passage  of  so  many  ages  and 
generations,  so  many  efforts  and  failures  and  slow  steps  of  progress,  in  its 
finished  and  flawless  perfectness  in  the  person  of  the  divine  Son  of  Man. 

—  Richard  William  Church. 

I  have  been  forced  bj'  the  peculiar  circumstances  of  my  work  to  regard 
from  many  sides  the  difficulties  which  beset  our  historic  faith.  If  I  know 
by  experience  their  significance  and  their  gravity;  if  I  readily  allow  that  on 
many  points  I  wish  for  fuller  light ;  then  I  claim  to  be  heard  when  I  say 
without  reserve  that  I  have  found  each  region  of  anxious  trial  fruitful  in 
blessing;  that  I  found  my  devout  reverence  for  every  word  of  the  Bible 
quickened  and  deepened,  when  I  have  acknowledged  that  it  demands  the 
exercise  of  every  laculty  with  which  I  have  been  endowed,  and,  thnt  as 
it  touches  the  life  of  man  at  every  point,  it  welcomes  for  its  fuller  under- 
standing the  help  which  comes  from  every  gain  of  human  knowledge. 

—  Brooke  Foss  Westcott. 

I  have  always  been  strongly  in  favor  of  secular  education,  m  the  sense 
of  education  without  theology;  but  I  must  confess  I  have  been  no  less  pct 
riously  perplexed  to  know  by  what  practical  measures  the  religious  feeling, 
which  is  the  essential  basis  of  conduct,  was  to  be  kept  up,  in  the  present 
utterly  chaotic  state  of  opmion  upon  these  matters,  without  the  use  of  the 
Bible.  —  Thomas  Hknry  Huxley. 


n. 

THE  ARCHIVES. 

First  in  their  list  of  essentials  the  Bishops  at 
Lambeth  placed  the  Hebrew  and  Christian  Scriptures, 
characterizing  them  thus :  "  The  Holy  Scriptures  of 
the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  as  '  containing  all  things 
necessary  to  salvationj'  and  as  being  the  rule  and  ulti- 
mate  standard  of  faith  J^ 

The  statement  that  Holy  Scripture  "  containeth  all 
things  necessary  to  salvation"  has  a  positive  and  a 
negative  side.  Positively,  it  asserts  that  in  Holy 
Scripture  "  things  necessary  to  salvation "  are  to  be 
found ;  negatively,  it  withholds  from  any  and  every 
extra-Scriptural  demand  upon  our  faith,  the  power  to 
bind.  The  statement,  on  its  affirmative  side,  does 
not  allege  that  a  knowledge  of  all  things  in  Holy 
Scripture  is  necessary  to  salvation  ;  nor  yet  on  its 
negative  side  does  it  declare  that  nothing  beyond  the 
range  of  Holy  Scripture  is  good  to  be  believed ;  but 
that  which  by  implication  is  averred  is,  that  if  we 
want  to  find  the  things  essential  to  the  soul's  safety, 
we  shall  do  well  to  look  into  the  Scriptures  rather 
than  elsewhere  to  find  them ;  and  that  which  by  im- 
plication is  denied  is,  that  anything  over  and  above 
what  Scripture  sets  forth  ought  to  be  counted  among 


52  THE  PEACE  OF  THE   CHURCH. 

the  possessions  which  the  soul  must  have  if  it  would 
escape  eternal  loss.  On  the  one  hand,  therefore,  the 
statement  is  exclusive  of  the  merely  literary  view 
which  sees  in  the  Bible  only  one  among  many  collec- 
tions of  writings  alleged  to  be  sacred ;  while,  on  the 
other,  it  opposes  itself  to  the  Roman  Catholic  doc- 
trine that  we  must  supplement  Scripture  by  Tradition 
if  we  wish  to  be  well  assured  of  "  all  things  necessary 
to  salvation."  Accordingly,  I  propose  to  take  up  in 
this  connection  the  general  question,  —  How  ought 
we  of  these  times  to  think  about  the  Bible  ?  Or,  to 
put  it  otherwise,  Has  anything  occurred  in  the  in- 
tellectual movement  of  our  day  to  compel  a  change 
of  attitude  on  the  part  of  reasonable  men  towards  the 
book,  or  books,  heretofore  dignified  by  the  title  Word 
of  God  ?  Have  such  words  as  "  revelation  "  and  "  in- 
spiration "  really  become  meaningless,  or  if  not  quite 
meaningless,  at  any  rate  so  thoroughly  diluted  as  to 
be  void  of  any  distinctive  flavor  ?  In  short,  do  the 
Bishops  betray  themselves  as  men  belated  and  be- 
hind their  time  when  they  speak  to  us  of  the  Bible  as 
being  "  the  rule  and  ultimate  standard  of  faith  "  ?  I 
make  bold  to  answer  these  questions  in  the  negative. 
I  hope  to  be  able  to  give  sound  reasons  for  believing 
that  the  unique  character  hitherto  conceded  to  the 
Christian  Scriptures  is  destined  to  continue  to  attach 
to  them ;  that  the  Bible  substantially  as  it  is  may  be 
counted  upon  to  survive  the  shock  of  criticism,  and 
to  stand,  as  it  has  stood,  the  accredited  classic  of 
religion,  a  hand-book  of  belief  indispensable  to  man. 


THE   ARCHIVES.  63 

My  method  will  not  be  that  of  minute  inquiry  into 
questions  of  date  and  authorship  connected  with  the 
various  books  of  the  Bible,  a  task  for  which  I  am  not 
adequately  furnished,  and  which  I  could  only  accom- 
plish as  a  borrower;  but,  instead,  such  a  discussion 
of  the  first  principles  involved  in  the  question  at 
issue,  as  will  demand  of  those  whom  I  address  no 
other  preparative  than  that  always  praiseworthy  pos- 
session, an  open  mind.  I  cannot  help  thinking  that 
on  such  a  line  I  shall  better  succeed  in  justifying  the 
prominence  given  in  the  Lambeth  platform  to  the 
Holy  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments, 
than  if  I  were  to  bewilder  you  with  citations  and 
overload  your  memories  with  dates. 

Can  God  disclose  his  mind  to  man  ? 

Has  He  at  any  time  or  times  actually  done  so  ? 

Is  there  record  of  such  disclosure  or  disclosures  ? 

Have  we  such  a  record  in  the  writings  that  col- 
lectively make  up  the  Bible? 

These  are  simple  questions  which  it  is  perfectly 
possible  to  deal  with  in  a  plain  and  intelligible  way. 
To  have  them  answered  for  us  is  to  have  the  mind 
set  permanently  at  rest  with  respect  to  what  is  most 
central  to  religion. 

I  begin  with  the  remark  that  so  far  as  the  intellec- 
tual life  of  the  race  is  concerned,  there  can  be  no 
denying  that  it  has,  from  time  to  time,  received  im- 
pulse and  acceleration  from  the  impact  of  new  truth 
announced  at  the  lips  of  men  called  discoverers. 
Sometimes  in  groups  and  clusters,  sometimes  singly 


54  THE  PEACE  OF  THE  CHURCH. 

and  at  long  intervals,  men  have  come  upon  the  scene 
equipped  to  teach  their  fellow-men  things  not  before 
known.  The  gap  that  separates  these  men  of  genius, 
as  they  are  commonly  called,  from  the  rank  and  file 
of  their  fellow-students  in  the  lower  class-room  is 
so  portentously  wide,  that  Evolution  is  overtaxed  in 
the  effort  to  account  for  their  appearance  upon  any 
theory  of  progress  by  infinitesimal  increments.  It  is 
true  that  we  must  distinguish  between  such  discov- 
eries as  are  the  product  of  profound  and  long-sus- 
tained reflection,  and  those  that  have  been  happened 
upon  by  what  we  call  chance.  In  the  case  of  certain 
discoveries,  that  of  anaesthesia,  for  example,  there  is 
no  evidence  of  genius  whatsoever.  The  thing  was 
blundered  into,  not  reasoned  out ;  and  the  same  may 
be  said  of  countless  chance  findings  that  pass  in  the 
books  under  the  same  general  head  with  those  great 
disclosures  that  have  followed  upon  hard  thinking. 
The  mere  discovery  of  a  new  star,  or  of  a  hundred 
new  stars,  is  a  small  matter  as  compared  with  the 
glory  of  discerning,  for  the  first  time,  one  of  the 
structural  principles  involved  in  the  celestial  me- 
chanics ;  and  even  to  have  added  an  item  to  the  cat- 
alogue of  the  chemical  elements  is  an  achievement 
in  no  measure  comparable  with  the  working  out  of 
a  fresh  rationale  of  the  molecular  motions.  Of  the 
discoverers  of  great  principles  my  remark  holds  good, 
that  the  difference  between  them  and  other  men  is 
so  sharply  accentuated  as  almost  to  warrant  us  in 
thinking  it  one  of  kind  rather  than  of  degree. 


THE   ARCHIVES.  65 

Of  such  men  as  Galileo  and  Newton,  the  most 
natural  account  would  seem  to  be  that  they  were 
sent  mto  the  world  so  marvellously  endowed  for  the 
express  purpose  of  communicating  a  message  and 
bestowing  a  blessing.  If  the  universe  had  a  con- 
scious designer,  and  all  theists,  whether  Christian 
or  not,  must  so  believe,  the  great  truths  of  the 
mathematics  are  common  to  his  mind  and  to  ours. 
That  one  after  another  of  these  truths  should  have 
come  to  light  among  us,  we  are  accustomed  to 
explain  by  saying  that  Euclid  lived,  that  Kepler 
lived ;  but  why  not  go  farther  back,  and  say :  God 
lives,  who  by  the  lips  of  his  servant  Euclid  has  taught 
us  the  properties  of  angles,  and  at  the  mouth  of  his 
servant  Kepler  has  revealed  to  us  the  principles  of 
curves  ?  Of  course  it  is  possible  for  the  materialist 
to  block  any  such  movement  back  towards  the  pur- 
poseful Author  and  Maker  by  a  flat  denial  of  any  con- 
sciousness in  the  universe  other  than  that  of  which 
each  one  of  us  knows  himself  to  be  possessed ;  but,  as 
I  just  intimated,  my  appeal  is  to  the  theists,  not  to 
the  atheists.  Under  a  theistic  scheme  of  evolution, 
nothing  could  be  more  reasonable  than  to  picture 
God  educating  his  creature  man  by  a  succession  of 
messengers  empowered  to  impart  truth  as  fast  as  the 
pupil  shall  be  found  "  able  to  bear  it."  Not  only  so  ; 
we  can  imagine  Him  using  races  as  well  as  individ- 
uals for  teachers,  and  as  apprenticing  man  first  to  this 
people,  then  to  that,  according  to  the  need  to  be  met. 
Such  a  theory  has,   of  course,  its   margin  of  unex- 


56  THE   PEACE   OF   THE   CHURCH. 

plained  phenomena ;  it  does  not  satisfactorily  account 
for  everything ;  but  is  there  a  single  one  among  the 
great  generalizations  of  science  that  can  show  a  map 
with  no  shadowed  patches,  no  tracts  or  even  zones 
that  have  to  be  marked  "  unexplored "  ?  Accepted 
as  a  working  hypothesis,  the  theistic  interpretation  of 
history  clears  up  a  greater  number  of  dark  places  than 
any  other  interpretation  that  has  been  suggested.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  we  find  the  world  indebted  for  its 
advancement  to  certain  definite  individuals,  and  to 
certain  definite  races,  as  to  no  other  individuals  and 
to  no  other  races.  The  whole  family  has  been  in 
pupilage  to  one  great  man  after  another ;  to  one 
select  race  after  another ;  has  gone  to  school,  as  we 
may  say,  now  in  Phoenicia,  now  at  Athens,  now  at 
Jerusalem.  To  discover  a  purpose  in  all  this,  to 
catch  the  outline  of  a  plan,  is  surely  not  the  unintel- 
ligent thing  some  would  have  us  account  it.  If  there 
be  a  more  reasonable  method  of  explaining  what  our 
eyes  see,  let  us  by  all  means  be  told  what  it  is. 

The  link  between  these  thoughts  and  the  subject  in 
hand  is  obvious.  The  Christian  plea  for  the  Scriptures 
is  that  they  contain  disclosures  not  elsewhere  to  be 
found  with  respect  to  the  character  and  purposes  of 
God,  and  the  duty  and  destiny  of  man.  It  is  not 
asserted  that  no  intimations  upon  these  weighty  mat- 
ters are  to  be  found  in  literatures  other  than  the 
Hebrew,  for  one  need  only  be  tolerably  well-informed 
in  order  to  know  that  the  contrary  is  the  fact.  But 
intimations  are  very  different  things  from  disclosures. 


THE   ARCHIVES.  57 

The  Christian  contention  is  that  to  one  selected  peo- 
ple, there  was  given  for  the  sake  of,  and  with  a  view  to, 
all  the  other  peoples  of  the  earth,  a  knowledge  of  cer- 
tahi  great  verities  wholly  undiscoverable  by  the  ordi- 
nary processes  of  human  intelligence.  It  is  one  thing 
for  a  document  to  be  generally  pervaded  by  what  we 
may  call  a  religious  or  spiritual  tone  ;  the  sacred  books 
of  the  East  give  voluminous  evidence  that  such  is  the 
case.  But  it  is  quite  another  thing  for  a  writing  to 
acquire  sacredness  because  of  the  serious  and  down- 
right way  in  which  it  sets  forth  such  statements  as 
that  God  has  sent  his  Son  into  the  world,  that  Christ 
is  risen  from  the  dead,  that  the  time  is  coming  in 
which  there  shall  be  new  heavens  and  a  new  earth. 
These,  and  the  like,  are  announcements  as  distinct, 
and  certainly  as  grave,  as  the  announcement,  "  The 
world  goes  around  the  sun ;  '*  "  Every  particle  of 
matter  attracts  every  other  particle  with  a  force  in- 
versely proportional  to  the  square  of  the  distance." 
Moreover,  it  is  to  be  observed  that  the  truths  in  ques- 
tion are  not  presented  to  us  in  the  Bible  as  the  out- 
come of  the  broodings  of  devout  souls  ;  they  are  put 
into  the  form  of  messages.  God,  it  is  declared,  has 
sent  us  word  that  things  are  thus  and  so  between 
Him  and  us,  and  that  certain  events  are  destined  to 
come  to  pass  for  which  we  are  bound  to  be  ready. 

I  lay  stress  upon  this  point  in  the  hope  that  by  doing 
so  I  may  disabuse  some  minds  of  the  notion  that  if  we 
will  only  be  patient,  natural  science,  which  has  already 
done  so  much  to  widen  the  area  of  our  knowledge. 


58  THE  PEACE  OF  THE   CHURCH. 

will  confer  upon  us  the  still  further  boon  of  a  demon- 
strable religion.  Natural  science  deals  with  number, 
mass,  and  force ;  it  can  count  and  weigh  and  register ; 
but  of  the  relations  of  persons  to  one  another  it 
neither  knows  nor  professes  to  know  anj^ thing  at  all. 
No  conceivable  enlargement  of  our  acquaintance  with 
the  material  world  can  ever  give  us  the  answer  to  the 
weightier  questions  of  religion,  for  these  are  all  of 
them  personal.  Even  though  the  arithmetic  of  the 
heavens  and  the  earth  were  to  be  worked  out  to  the  last 
figure,  —  every  star  tabulated,  every  period  computed, 
every  atom  weighed,  —  we  should  still  be  as  far  as  ever 
from  finding  the  solution  of  the  problems  that  lie 
most  heavily  upon  the  mind.  If  God  have  what  we 
understand  by  personality,  that  is  to  say,  self-con- 
sciousness and  will,  we  as  persons  must  stand  related 
to  Him  in  some  definite  way  ;  He  must  have  a  purpose 
with  respect  to  us,  and  we  a  duty  towards  Him. 

But  how  can  natural  science  help  us  here  ?  It  can 
indeed  throw  some  light  upon  the  care  that  must  be 
taken  of  the  body,  if  it  is  to  be  kept  healthy ;  and 
since  man's  trusteeship  of  his  five  senses  is  a  doc- 
trine of  religion,  we  need  not  deny  to  such  sciences 
as  anatomy  and  physiology,  a  certain  auxiliary  value 
in  making  us  more  fully  acquainted  with  our  duty 
towards  God.  But  the  care  of  the  body  is  only  one 
department  of  religion.  Man  is  not  adequately  con- 
sidered when  we  think  of  him  only  in  his  solitariness 
as  an  individual.  Account  has  to  be  taken  of  the 
thousand  and  one  complications  that  arise  as  soon  as 


THE   ARCHIVES.  69 

yoii  bring  man  into  contact  with  his  fellow-men,  and 
look  at  him  in  the  light  of  father,  brother,  neighbor, 
townsman,  citizen. 

In  this  region  of  man's  social  relations,  natural 
science,  strictly  so  called,  can  help  us  not  at  all. 
Such  mixed  sciences  as  sociology  and  political  econ- 
omy can  indeed  throw  light  upon  the  matter  ;  they 
can  minister  to  the  needs  of  the  body  politic,  just  as 
we  have  seen  that  anatomy  and  physiology  can  minis- 
ter to  the  needs  of  the  body  physical ;  but  even  they, 
when  confronted  with  the  blunt  question,  Why  must 
I  do  right,  when  every  instinct  in  me  is  prompting 
me  to  do  otherwise  ?  are  powerless  to  give  a  satisfac- 
tory answer.  Confessing  no  God,  they  have  no  room 
in  their  vocabulary  for  the  word  Ought.  But  if 
science,  even  when  mixed  with  too  many  foreign  in- 
gredients to  allow  of  our  speaking  of  it  as  "  pure," 
is  clearly  unequal  to  the  task  of  telling  men  in  what 
manner  and  on  what  terms  they  ought  to  live  with 
one  another,  how  utterly  incompetent  it  must  be  to 
instruct  them  in  the  right  way  of  living  with  their 
God  I  Christians  believe  that  upon  this  highest  of  all 
subjects  intelligence  has  been  received  by  message. 
God,  they  say,  has  declared  his  will,  and  given  his 
commandment ;  nay,  more  than  this,  has  to  a  certain 
limited  extent  revealed  his  purpose.  If  there  have 
been  disclosures  in  physics,  why  doubt  that  there  have 
also  been  disclosures  in  ethics  ?  Did  Newton's  Prin- 
cipia  throw  any  more  light  on  the  motions  of  stars, 
than  Moses  in  the  Decalogue  threw  upon  the  relations 


60  THE  PEACE  OF   THE   CHURCH. 

of  souls  ?  Is  it  not  the  better  conclusion  then,  that 
both  men  were  revealers,  chosen  of  God  to  be  such, 
sent  here  to  tell  us  new  truth  ?  Or,  again,  take  such 
questions  as  touch  the  future,  and  consider  how  help- 
less we  are,  apart  from  the  aid  given  us  by  disclosure. 
Interesting  as  is  the  problem  of  origins,  the  problem 
of  destiny  is  more  so.  That  our  tenancy  of  this 
planet  had  a  beginning  is  demonstrable ;  that  it  will 
have  an  ending  is  therefore  probable  ;  but  what  sort  of 
an  ending  ?  Is  there  nothing  better  in  store  for  the 
round  world  than  the  becoming  either  an  ice-pack  or  a 
cinder  ?  To  this  question  natural  science,  as  at  pres- 
ent informed,  says  No.  But  Christians  hold  that 
however  things  may  turn  out  with  the  globe  itself, 
we  who  live  upon  it  have  received  by  message  certain 
definite  and  precious  promises,  that  assure  to  the 
family  a  brighter  destiny  than  awaits  the  homestead. 

In  other  words,  natural  science  can  predict  the 
world's  physical  future,  with  a  certain  measure  of 
accuracy  ;  but  religion  alone  professes  to  have  any- 
thing to  tell  as  to  the  moral  and  spiritual  issues 
wrapped  up  with  the  great  fact  that  an  end  certainly 
is  to  come.  Science  can  prophesy  in  a  sense ;  there 
are  certain  things  it  can  foretell ;  but  if  the  prophecy 
is  to  be  translated,  the  meaning  of  the  writing  shown, 
the  real  issues  determined,  a  Daniel  must  be  called  to 
judgment,  one  "in  whom  is  the  spirit  of  the  holy 
Gods,"  a  messenger  competent  to  interpret  and  to 
declare. 

The  whole  question,  therefore,  resolves  itself  into 


THE   ARCHIVES.  61 

one  of  credentials.  Are  these  voices  to  which  Chris- 
tians have  given  assent  trustworthy  ?  Can  the  mes- 
sengers, the  witnesses,  the  interpreters,  call  them 
which  you  choose,  stand  the  cross-questioning  to 
which  the  modern  spirit  is  determined  to  subject  all 
comers  who  make  a  claim  upon  its  confidence  ?  We 
are  living  in  the  midst  of  this  cross-questioning  pro- 
cess ;  it  is  going  on  before  our  eyes ;  the  witnesses 
are  under  fire  ;  and  the  world,  looking  on,  abides  the 
result.  But  you  and  I  cannot  afford  to  sit  aside  with 
folded  hands,  waiting  for  a  verdict  that  may  not  be 
announced  at  the  lips  of  the  learned  for  a  century  to 
come.  What  are  we  to  do  ?  How  are  we  to  settle 
for  ourselves  the  question  of  credibility  ?  In  precisely 
the  same  way,  I  venture  to  suggest,  that  the  specta- 
tors at  an  ordinary  trial,  who  are  not  themselves  in 
the  jury  box,  make  up  their  minds  as  to  the  rights 
and  wrongs  of  the  question  at  issue ;  namely,  by 
looking  the  witnesses  squarely  in  the  face  and  forming 
an  independent  judgment  as  to  their  honesty.  In  a 
deeper  sense  than  the  poet  himself  imagined  is  "  full 
assurance  "  sometimes  ''  given  by  looks."  It  is  possi- 
ble with  one's  Bible  in  hand  to  look  Moses,  Isaiah,  St. 
John,  St.  Paul,  not  to  name  the  holiest  of  all  the 
names,  directly  in  the  eye,  and  to  answer  to  one's  own 
satisfaction  the  question.  Is  this  man  a  deceiver,  or  do 
his  features  bear  the  stamp  of  honesty  ?  Even  in  Old 
Testament  times,  uncritical  as  we  are  assured  those 
times  were,  it  was  customary  to  subject  all  who  gave 
themselves  forth  as  messeno-ers  of  God  and  unveilers 


62  THE   PEACE   OF   THE    CHURCH. 

of  his  mind,  to  very  searching  tests.  They  discrim- 
inated carefully  between  prophets  and  "  false  proph- 
ets," the  men  who  had  the  genuine  gift  of  vision  and 
the  men  who  only  pretended  to  have  it.  "  Woe  unto 
the  false  prophets,"  vehemently  exclaimed  one  of  the 
true  ones,  "  who  follow  their  own  spirit  and  have 
seen  nothing."  Doubtless  the  method  of  detecting 
the  false  prophets  was  that  simple  one  which  I  have 
called  "  looking  in  the  face."  Insincerity  has  a  way 
of  betraying  itself,  if  not  upon  the  moment,  sooner  or 
later.  The  holy  prophets  which  have  been  since  the 
world  began,  have  held  their  own  all  these  centuries, 
because  the  successive  generations  of  men  have  found 
that  good,  and  only  good,  came  of  taking  them  at 
their  word.  To  the  argument  in  their  favor  afforded 
by  the  very  manner  of  their  speech,  has  been  added 
the  argument  which  credits  a  tree  with  goodness  be- 
cause of  the  goodness  of  the  fruit ;  and  the  two  argu- 
ments taken  together  have  been  very  helpful  to  plain 
people,  as  in  fact  they  are  likely  to  continue  to  be. 

But  we  are  told  that  the  time  has  come  when  it  is 
fatal  to  the  life  of  any  religion  that  it  should  be  under 
the  necessity  of  confessing  itself  a  "  book-religion  " ; 
and  that  since  this  is  a  confession  which  Christianity 
must  needs  make,  the  inference  necessarily  follows 
that  the  days  of  Christianity  are  numbered.  What 
shall  we  say  to  this  ?  First  of  all,  that  we  are  not  in 
the  least  degree  ashamed  of  making  our  confession. 
The  fact  is  as  alleged ;  it  is  impossible  to  deny  that, 
for  better  or  for  worse,  the  fortunes  of  Christ's  reli- 


THE   ARCHIVES.  63 

gion  have  been  knitted  to  a  book.  There  is  no  escap- 
ing this.  The  real  downfall  of  the  Bible  would  mean 
the  break-up  of  Christendom.  It  is  of  no  avail  to 
argue  that  because  the  Church  was  in  existence  before 
the  manuscripts,  so  equally  it  might  endure  and  flour- 
ish if  bereft  of  them.  A  word-of-mouth  gospel  sufficed 
so  long  as  men  who  had  had  "  perfect  understanding 
of  all  things  from  the  very  first "  were  still  alive  to 
tell  their  story  ;  but  with  the  passing  away  of  that 
generation  there  came  in  the  need  of  an  authenticated 
record,  a  trustworthy  chronicle,  a  written  recital  of 
facts.  This  need  has  existed  from  then  till  now,  and 
must  continue  to  exist  so  long  as  the  conditions  of 
human  life  are  what  they  are. 

Equally  futile  is  the  assurance  that  no  matter  what 
may  happen  to  the  letter  of  the  Bible,  the  spirit  of  it 
is  certain  to  survive.  Doubtless  the  spirit  of  ether 
survives  the  breaking  of  the  bottle  in  which  it  has 
been  kept ;  but  survives  where  ?  A  Christianity  so 
thinly  diffused  as  to  be  nowhere  definitely  discover- 
able will  prove  a  sorry  help  in  the  work-a-day  process 
of  bettering  mankind.  But  the  fact  that  the  downfall 
of  the  Bible  would  mean  the  break-up  of  Christendom 
need  not  trouble  us  unless  we  have  reason  to  fear 
that  the  Bible  is  likely  to  fall  down.  We  are  accus- 
tomed to  speak  well  of  bridges  that  carry  us  safely 
over,  and  to  give  them  the  credit  of  soundness  until 
they  have  been  proved  rotten.  The  Bible  enjoys  an 
established  reputation  of  this  sort,  has,  in  fact,  so 
good  a  name,  that  we   need   not  feel  the   slightest 


64  THE  PEACE  OF   THE   CHURCH. 

nervousness  or  anxiety  about  going  down  to  the 
bottom  of  things,  and  calmly  considering  the  ques- 
tion whether  the  bare  fact  that  the  Bible  is  a  book 
be  or  be  not  fatal  to  the  continuance  of  the  religion 
whose  book  it  is. 

To  charge  Christianity  with  being  a  book-religion 
is  only  another  way  of  condemning  it  for  being  of  an 
historical  character,  and  having  a  foothold  in  the 
past.  It  is  the  fond  conceit  of  some  that  a  day  is 
coming  when  religion  will  be  able  to  dispense  with 
documents  altogether.  Before  very  long,  they  hope 
to  see  the  matter  in  such  a  shape  that  a  few  simple 
propositions,  received  on  their  own  merits  as  self- 
evident,  and  unincumbered  by  any  wearisome  appeal 
to  history,  will  be  accepted  as  an  all-sufficient  basis 
for  the  holy  life,  a  trustworthy  index  of  the  perfect 
way.  Why,  they  ask  contemptuously,  should  faith  be 
compelled  to  limp  along  fettered  to  a  huge  volume, 
clogged  by  the  weight  of  ancient  chronicles,  and  bend- 
ing beneath  a  burden  of  old  prophecies  hard  to  be  un- 
derstood ?  The  remonstrance  has  a  plausible  sound, 
and  for  the  moment  we  feel  disposed  to  yield  to  it, 
to  throw  away  the  parchments  as  things  not  worth 
remembering,  and  to  start  out  with  a  light  heart  in 
search  of  this  simple  and  easy  religion  of  the  future. 

But  when  we  sit  down  quietly  to  think  the  whole 
matter  over  before  actually  committing  ourselves  to 
this  new  departure,  slowly  it  begins  to  dawn  on  us 
that  a  religion  which  has  nothing  to  tell  about  the 
past ;  which  can  point  to  no  evidences  of  the  working 


THE   ARCHIVES.  65 

of  God  in  history  ;  affects  to  be  beyond  the  need  of 
way-marks  and  footprints ;  acknowledges  no  epochs 
of  unveiling,  no  seasons  of  special  vision ;  cannot 
say,  "  There,  there,  and  there  He  passed,  and  men 
felt  the  breath  of  his  presence  as  He  went  by,"  —  it 
begins  to  be  made  plain  to  us  that  a  religion  which 
can  do  none  of  these  things,  but,  instead,  boasts  of 
itself  as  being  wholly  without  records  and  quite  free 
from  such  troublesome  impedimenta  as  sacred  annals, 
is  scarcely  a  religion  we  can  afford  implicitly  to  trust. 
A  God  who  is  "  to  everlasting  "  does  not  suffice  us  ; 
we  would  have  one  who  is  "  from  everlasting  "  also. 
The  present  is  of  immense  importance,  but  somehow 
it  seems  to  lose  vitality,  to  become  anaemic,  when  the 
ligaments  that  tie  it  to  the  past  have  been  cut.  If 
religion  were  nothing  more  or  better  than  theosophy, 
nothing  other,  that  is  to  say,  than  an  attempt  at  un- 
derstanding the  inner  nature  of  the  Divine  Being  by 
dint  of  blank  contemplation,  a  patient  sitting  under 
the  fig-tree  of  pure  thought,  then,  indeed,  there  might 
be  something  to  say  in  behalf  of  this  proposal  to  break 
wholly  with  the  past,  and  to  begin  afresh,  as  it  were, 
with  a  newly-discovered  God.  But  to  the  mind  that 
is  in  earnest,  to  the  heart  aflame  with  eager  interest 
to  justify  the  ways  of  God  to  man,  such  a  limiting 
of  religion's  scope,  such  a  narrowing  of  her  range  is 
most  distasteful  and  ominous.  We  crave  evidence 
that  God  has  always  "  from  the  beginning  "  taken  an 
interest  in  the  affairs  of  earth  ;  that  the  long  story  of 
the  world's  troubles  and  triumphs  has  a  thread   of 

5 


QQ  THE  PEACE  OF   THE  CHURCH. 

connection  running  through  it ;  that  the  generations 
have  been  knit  together  by  a  tie  of  purpose;  that 
events  are  leading  the  race  up  to  a  definite  crisis  in 
the  future,  for  which  the  whole  past  has  been  a  prep- 
aration ;  and  that  the  things  concerning  us  men  have 
an  end. 

This  is  the  meaning  of  those  strong  appeals  to  God 
in  which  the  Christian  Scriptures  abound,  as  the  God 
of  the  ancient  times  and  of  the  former  peoples  ;  faith 
in  Him  as  the  God  of  Abraham  is  strong,  but  faith  in 
Him  as  the  God  of  Abraham,  of  Isaac,  and  of  Jacob 
is  trebly  strong.  In  other  words,  the  argument  for 
belief  is  cumulative,  gathering  weight  and  momentum 
as  the  cycles  unfold.  Listen  to  David  at  one  of  his 
moments  of  distress  when  in  the  deep  waters  he  is 
grasping  after  some  bit  of  floating  truth,  some  frag- 
ment of  conviction  buoyant  enough  to  save  him  from 
wholly  going  under, — "0  my  God,"  he  cries,  "  our 
fathers  hoped  in  thee,  they  trusted  in  thee,  and  thou 
didst  deliver  them."  He  would  have  been  all  at  sea 
without  the  record,  the  memorandum. 

Listen  to  Solomon  at  the  dedication  of  the  temple 
gathering  up  his  long  supplication  into  one  compre- 
hensive suffrage, —  "  The  Lord  our  God  be  with  us  as 
He  was  with  our  fathers ;  Let  Him  not  leave  us  nor 
forsake  us."  How  came  it  to  be  possible  for  the  one 
monarch  in  his  calamity,  and  for  the  other  at  his 
supreme  hour  of  triumph,  thus  to  make  identically 
the  same  appeal  to  Deity  as  a  *'  God  of  the  fathers  "  ? 
Clearly  because  a  tradition  had  been  handed  on,  a 


THE   ARCHIVES.  67 

chronicle  -maintained,  a  record  kept.  To  enable  sup- 
pliants thus  to  press  God  with  a  major  premise,  to 
urge  upon  Him  old  loving-kindnesses  as  a  reason  for 
bestowing  new  ones,  there  must  be  a  memory  that 
can  and  does  reach  far  back  into  the  past.  Experi- 
ence cannot  be  extemporized.  The  reach  even  of  a 
lifetime,  if  it  be  a  disconnected  lifetime,  is  insuffi- 
cient to  breed  the  confidence  we  hunger  after. 

The  only  trustworthy  biisis  on  which  to  build  the 
fabric  of  hope  is  memory,  and  a  far-reaching  memory 
at  that,  — "  the  foundations  of  many  generations." 
A  religion  tangent  to  human  affairs  at  only  one  point 
is  inadequate  ;  we  want  one  that  coheres  with  all  the 
past.  But  such  a  religion  will  be  from  the  very  neces- 
sities of  the  case  a  book-religion.  If  God  be  indeed 
a  conscious  person  who  "at  sundry  times  and  in 
divers  manners  "  has  from  the  beginning  been  com- 
municating with  his  creature  man,  how  should  we  of 
this  day  be  at  all  the  better  for  that  fact  unless  the 
word  spoken  and  the  deed  done  had  been  chronicled  ? 
But  the  chronicle,  whether  it  be  graven  on  brass,  or 
cut  in  stone,  or  written  on  parchment,  or  printed  on 
paper,  is,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  the  Book. 

Moreover,  not  only  are  records  essential  to  our 
knowing  God  ;  they  are  equally  essential  to  our  know- 
ing man  ;  and  the  knowledge  of  our  fellow-man  is  no 
slight  part  of  religion.  Records  help  us  to  know  man 
by  enlarging  the  mirror  in  which  we  study  his  re- 
flected image.  Nineteenth  century  man,  taken  alone, 
is  not  man,  he  is  a  mere  fragment  of  man.     If  we 


68  THE  PEACE  OF  THE   CHURCH. 

would  know  man  in  his  entirety  we  must  study 
him  in  every  ascertainable  stage  of  his  existence. 
The  cave-dweller  whose  likeness  was  opportunely 
scratched  for  us  on  a  bit  of  reindeer  horn,  the  Egyp- 
tian whose  profile  we  know  from  wall  paintings  as  old 
as  Thebes,  the  Assyrian  warrior  pushing  on  his  char- 
iot of  stone  and  horses  of  stone  against  the  stone 
enemy  he  can  never  overtake, — these  people  have  a 
kinship  with  us  as  real  as  theirs  who  looked  down  on 
us  from  the  walls  of  last  year's  Salon. 

But,  it  may  be  asked,  why  not  prosecute  this  study 
of  man  as  he  shows  himself  from  China  to  Peru,  and 
as  he  has  shown  himself  from  the  first  day  until 
now  ;  in  the  pages  of  the  so-called  secular  historians  ? 
Why  should  Biblical  annalists  be  accounted  especially 
valuable  in  such  an  undertaking  ?  Arc  not  a  Gibbon 
and  a  Hallam  as  helpful  as  a  Moses  and  an  Ezra  ?  To 
which  the  proper  reply  would  seem  to  be.  This  ought 
ye  to  have  done  and  not  to  leave  the  other  undone. 
Doubtless  all  history  is  rich  in  the  materials  of  a  true 
anthropology.  But  the  noticeable  characteristic  of 
the  Bible  writers  is  that  they,  in  a  unique  sense,  have 
given  us  the  biography  of  the  human  conscience.  The 
Greek  tragedians  can  perhaps  be  said  to  come  near 
them  in  this  line,  but  it  is  only  with  an  occasional 
approach.  In  what  we  know  as  "Holy  Scripture," 
and  in  that  only  of  all  the  literatures  of  the  earth, 
man  walks  ever  either  in  the  approving  or  the  con- 
demning presence  of  a  watchful  Judge.  In  these 
chronicles  heaven's  verdict  is  pronounced  on   every 


THE  ARCHIVES.  C9 

mortal  career  with  passionless  precision.  We  are  not 
deceived  by  false  epithets  as  in  popular  histories. 
Jezebel  is  not  named  "the  Fair"  nor  Herod  styled 
"  the  Great."  The  fact  that  "  he  did  evil  in  the  sight 
of  the  Lord  "  constitutes  in  these  pages  the  condem- 
nation of  a  king,  no  matter  how  much  he  may  have 
added  to  the  national  territory  or  advanced  the  credit 
of  the  tribes.  Next  in  importance  to  the  definite 
announcements  of  fact,  to  which  I  have  already  re- 
ferred as  making  the  true  differentia  of  the  Bible, 
ought  to  be  reckoned  this  pervasive  flavor  of  right- 
eousness. Other  sacred  books  contain  in  abundance 
what  we  know  as  religious  sentiment,  vague  aspira- 
tion, pathetic  unrest,  the  consciousness  of  insignifi- 
cance, the  sense  of  mystery ;  the  Bible  alone  insists  on 
knowing,  first  of  all,  whether  the  heart  of  the  devotee 
be  set  on  doing  the  thing  that  is  right. 

Looked  at  as  the  literature  of  a  people  the  Scrip- 
tures have  certainly  much  in  common  with  other 
literatures.  There  is  poetry  there,  there  is  history, 
there  is  biography,  there  is  mental  philosophy,  there 
is  drama,  there  is  correspondence,  there  are  the  pithy 
sayings  into  which  a  people 's  mind  condenses  its  wise 
conclusions,  there  is  impassioned  eloquence,  there  is 
allegory,  there  are  confessions,  there  are  forecastings 
of  the  future,  there  are  commentaries  upon  the  past, 
there  is  a  book  of  laws  and  there  is  a  book  of  psalms. 
Kings  move  across  the  pages ;  soldiers  and  armies  are 
in  motion  hither  and  thither,  courtiers  and  nobles, 
laboring  men  and  peasants,  women,  maidens,  children. 


70  THE  PEACE  OF  THE   CHURCH. 

—  all  are  there,  coming  and  going.  Sometimes  the 
scene  lies  in  the  city,  sometimes  in  the  fields,  some- 
times the  background  is  of  woods  and  mountains.  But 
even  so  are  all  great  national  literatures  fashioned. 
Into  every  one  of  them  enter  these  component  parts. 
Across  the  field  of  each  marches  and  countermarches 
the  like  procession.  How  then  differs  the  Bible  from 
them  all  ?  What  is  that  distinguishing  note  or  mark 
by  means  of  which  we  distinguish  the  Book  from  all 
books  beside  ?  It  is  the  presence  throughout  the 
Scriptures  of  what  we  may  call  the  flavor  of  right- 
eousness. These  sacred  writers,  as  they  are  properly 
named,  all  of  them  look  at  life  and  at  the  earth's  vari- 
ous history  from  a  single  standpoint ;  they  are  critics 
of  conduct ;  they  not  only  narrate,  they  judge. 

It  is,  indeed,  conceivable  that  men  may  one  day 
rise  up  and  banish  religion  in  every  form  and  shape 
from  the  earth,  sometimes  it  looks  as  if  they  were 
really  meaning  to  do  that ;  but  if  religion  is  to  stay 
with  us,  the  Bible,  simply  by  dint  of  its  surpassing 
spiritual  vigor,  and  for  lack  of  any  adequate  com- 
petitor, is  certain  to  outlive  all  rivals.  The  ethnic 
scriptures  have  become  easily  accessible  within  recent 
years,  they  are  to  be  found  in  English  translations  on 
the  shelves  of  all  well-appointed  public  libraries,  and 
it  is  possible  for  anybody  to  institute  on  his  own  ac- 
count such  a  comparison  as  I  have  suggested.  Look 
for  yourselves  into  the  sacred  books  of  Brahmins, 
Buddhists,  and  Confucians,  and  see  whether  anywhere 
you  catch  the  peculiar  quality  of  voice,  at  once  manda- 


THE   ARCHIVES.  71 

tory  and  persuasive,  so  easily  audible  in  our  own 
Scriptures.  Where  in  them  do  we  find  anything 
that  strikes  home  to  the  conscience  with  the  sturdy 
strength  that  lives  in  the  arm  of  Moses,  man  of  God, 
or  lies  back  of  the  well-aimed  blow  of  Paul,  soldier 
and  servant  of  Jesus  Christ?  Many  bitter  things 
have  been  said  about  the  Bible,  first  and  last,  by 
those  who  have  had  a  grudge  against  it ;  but  no  one, 
so  far  as  I  know,  has  ever  ventured  upon  calling  it  a 
weak  book.  Virility  penetrates  every  page  of  it ;  for 
any  slightest  trace  of  feebleness  or  sentimentality 
we  search  the  Scriptures  to  no  purpose  ;  it  is  not 
there. 

To  strength  add  delicacy.  The  Bible  writers  are 
not  only  of  stalwart  breed,  they  show  everywhere 
what  we  may  call  religious  refinement,  a  certain  sen- 
sitiveness of  retina  in  the  matter  of  discerning  nice 
shades  of  spiritual  difference.  Let  the  student  of 
comparative  religion  match  if  he  can  the  dignity  of 
the  Psalms  ;  the  clear-voiced  witness  of  the  greater 
and  the  lesser  prophets  against  the  materialism  of 
their  times ;  the  lucid  simplicity  of  speech  in  which 
St.  John,  the  eagle  of  the  Evangelists,  tells  the  story 
of  the  Word  made  flesh. 

But  most  of  all,  and  with  carefulest  search,  let  him 
try  whether  he  can  find  elsewhere  anything  resem- 
bling the  Bible's  guarantee  of  forgiveness  and  promise 
of  eternal  life.  Here  we  come  back  to  what  I  have 
already  emphasized  as  the  announcements  of  Scrip- 
ture.    With  trifling  exceptions,  the  parables  of  Na« 


72  THE  PEACE  OF   THE   CHURCH. 

ture  make  strongly  against  belief  in  the  forgiveness 
of  sins,  and  are  subversive  of  "  the  blessed  hope  of  ever- 
lasting life."  The  Bible,  with  a  voice  of  authority, 
speaks  to  us  and  gives  assurance  of  both  pardon  and 
immortality.  Here  is  the  secret  of  the  book's  per- 
petuity ;  live  it  must,  because  of  the  good  news  in  it. 
Men's  hearts  are  not  so  rich  in  hope  that  they  can 
willingly,  or  for  any  long  time,  shut  their  ears  against 
the  only  message  annunciatory  of  better  things  to  come 
that  has  ever  yet  commanded  and  held  the  assent 
of  any  considerable  number  of  minds  acknowledged 
great. 

Do  not  understand  me  as  wishing  to  cast  the  slight- 
est slur  upon  what  is  praiseworthy  in  the  sacred 
books  of  the  heathen  peoples.  In  order  to  prove  our 
own  Scriptures  invaluable,  it  is  not  necessary  to  de- 
clare all  other  Scriptures  valueless.  Goodness  and 
truth,  wherever  we  find  them,  and  in  whatever  meas- 
ure, are  of  God,  and  whenever  we  discover  their  pres- 
ence, we  are  bound  to  acknowledge  their  origin. 
We  have  St.  Paul's  warrant  for  believing  that  the 
heathen  have  not  been  left  wholly  without  witness, 
so  far  as  concerns  one  of  the  gravest  interests  of  re- 
ligion, moral  responsibility ;  and  doubtless  not  a  few 
rays  of  the  light  which  lighteth  "  every  man,"  may 
be  found  garnered  in  the  Scriptures  of  faiths  other 
than  ours.  But  voluntarily  and  gratuitously  to  pro- 
pose to  exchange  our  daylight  for  their  twilight  is  to 
flatter  the  heathen  overmuch.  Our  safety  does  not 
lie  in  eclecticism.     Not  by  any  piecing  together  of 


THE   ARCHIVES.  73 

fragments  of  religions,  not  by  picking  up  a  pebble 
here  and  a  pebble  there,  as  artists  in  mosaic  make 
their  pictures,  are  we  to  find  our  portraiture  of  the 
God  and  Father  of  us  all.  No  matching  of  selected 
features  gathered  from  all  faiths,  however  ingeniously 
put  together,  will  ever  work  a  displacement  of  the 
likeness  already  accepted  by  the  Christian  conscious- 
ness as  true,  so  manifestly  does  the  Bible  picture  of 
the  Divine  Majesty  surpass  all  competing  attempts  to 
show  us  what  God  is  like.  The  Christian  Evidence 
Societies  could  do  the  public  no  better  service  than  to 
print  for  purposes  of  contrast  an  edition,  say,  of  the 
Gospel  of  St.  John,  interleaved  with  the  very  best 
sentences  it  is  possible  to  gather  from  the  sacred  lit- 
eratures of  the  East.  The  whole  controversy  would, 
in  that  case,  be  condensed  into  a  simple  "  Look  here 
upon  this  picture,  and  on  this." 

So  far  as  we  have  as  yet  developed  it,  the  argument 
may  be  put  into  three  sentences.  First,  the  world 
cannot  live,  at  least  cannot  live  contentedly,  without 
religion.  Secondly,  religion  cannot  live,  at  least  can- 
not adequately  live,  without  records,  without  an 
authenticated  history,  a  book  of  words  and  acts. 
Thirdly,  among  such  books,  and  they  are  many,  the 
Christian  Scriptures,  even  by  the  confession  of  un- 
friendly critics,  stand  supreme. 

I  pass  now  to  consider  the  function  of  criticism 
with  respect  to  the  Scriptures,  and  the  construction 
that  ought  to  be  put  upon  the  words  Inspiration  and 
Revelation.     It    is   obvious  to   remark    that  without 


74  THE  PEACE  OF  THE  CHURCH. 

what  we  understand  by  criticism  we  never  should 
have  had  the  Bible  in  its  present  shape  at  all.  Criti- 
cism is  the  exercise  of  discernment ;  as  an  instrument 
it  may  be  likened  to  the  flail.  The  critic  essays  to 
separate  the  more  from  the  less  precious,  and  to  tell 
us  why  he  does  so.  In  some  instances  criticism  is 
the  work  of  an  individual,  sometimes  of  a  delibera- 
tive body  supposed  to  be  composed  of  qualified 
judges ;  and  sometimes,  again,  it  is  the  slow  action 
of  a  public  opinion  that  makes  itself  heard  in  only 
half  articulate  ways,  and  at  odd  intervals,  but  still 
does,  sooner  or  later,  carry  its  point  and  hold  the 
field. 

Beginners  in  theology  are  apt  to  be  very  much 
disturbed  in  mind  because  nobody  can  give  them  a 
hard  and  fast  account  of  the  precise  manner  in  which 
the  canon  of  the  Old  Testament  and  the  canon  of  the 
New  were  originally  determined.  The  instinct  in  us 
that  craves  precision  is  piqued  when  it  is  discovered 
that,  in  an  important  inquiry,  day  and  date  are  miss- 
ing. It  is  well  known  that  in  the  early  Church  there 
were  differences  of  opinion  with  respect  to  the  limits 
of  the  canon.  There  were  certain  books  universally 
received ;  there  were  certain  others  open  to  challenge. 
In  some  congregations  lessons  were  read  from  the 
Shepherd  of  Hermas,  for  example,  a  Scripture  with 
which  at  present  only  patristic  students  are  familiar. 
How  was  it  ever  brought  to  pass  that  there  did  finally 
emerge  the  collection  we  now  have  as  the  New  Tes- 
tament?   An   intelligent   believer  will   be   likely  to 


THE   ARCHIVES.  75 

answer  the  question  thus,  The  result  was  brought  to 
pass  under  the  oversight  of  Ahnighty  God  by  the 
instrumentality  of  criticism. 

The  criticism  was  doubtless  exercised  by  all  three 
of  the  methods  I  just  named.  Solitary  scholars,  each 
man  working  by  himself,  had  part  in  it ;  councils  of 
bishops  had  part  in  it ;  public  opinion,  declaring  itself 
in  all  sorts  of  unclassified  ways,  had  part  in  it.  Fin- 
ally, as  the  result  of  the  best  judgment  of  the  times 
there  came  forth  the  colleclion  as  we  have  it;  the 
canon,  as  we  say,  was  closed.  A  not  wholly  dissimi- 
lar process  gave  us,  in  the  region  of  secular  literature, 
what  we  know  as  "  the  classics."  It  is  impossible  to 
say  precisely  wiio  assorted  the  ancient  authors,  and 
decided  just  which  should  be  and  which  should  not  be 
accounted  classical.  All  the  same  we  have  the  clas- 
sics ;  that  they  exist  is  an  unquestionable  fact ;  no 
one  can  shut  his  eyes  to  their  presence  in  literature ; 
they  are  here.  Moreover,  the  fact  is  one  that  is  not 
at  all  imperilled  by  the  confessed  possibility  of  error 
on  the  part  of  those  who  originally  determined  the 
metes  and  bounds  of  classicality.  Because  the  right 
of  tliis  or  that  obscure  poet  of  post-Augustan  times 
to  a  place  among  the  Latin  classics  may  happen  to  be 
disputed,  no  one  trembles  for  Catullus  or  for  Virgil. 
The  Amen  of  many  generations  has  given  sanction  to 
the  list  as  a  whole,  and  though  modern  criticism 
may  nibble  at  the  edges  of  the  codex,  the  substance 
remains. 

We  ought  to  be  equally  confident  with  respect  to 


76  THE   fEACE   OF   THE   CHURCH. 

the  classics  of  religion,  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testaments.  Through  aid  of  criticism  they  were 
originally  marked  off  from  other  Scriptures,  and  iso- 
lated as  having  in  them  a  certain  distinctive  some- 
thins:  not  elsewhere  to  be  found.  If  criticism  did  us 
this  good  service  some  seventeen  or  eighteen  hundred 
years  ago,  why  look  askance  at  criticism  when  it 
comes  in  nineteenth  century  guise  proposing  to  re- 
open questions  of  authorship  and  canonicity  in  con- 
nection with  our  sacred  books?  It  may  be  urged 
against  this  way  of  looking  at  the  matter  that  since 
it  has  pleased  God  to  shroud  the  beginnings  of  many 
beneficent  growths,  that  of  the  State,  for  instance,  in 
darkness,  a  reverent  prudence  would  discountenance 
any  attempt  to  investigate  the  beginnings  of  the  Bible. 
The  remonstrance  has  a  certain  measure  of  reason- 
ableness in  it,  and  deserves  a  hearing ;  to  sneer  at  it 
as  childish  is  more  easy  than  wise.  Doubtless  it  is,  in 
a  sense,  calamitous  for  society  when  the  analytical 
fit  seizes  it,  and  all  life  comes  to  be  written  over 
with  interrogation  marks.  There  is  a  sickly  as  well  as 
a  healthy  curiosity,  and  that  is  by  no  means  the  best 
horticulture  which  is  for  ever  bent  on  pulling  things 
up  by  the  roots  with  the  professed  object  of  seeing 
how  they  began.  On  the  compiler  of  every  document 
that  in  any  measure  is  expected  to  bind  posterity,  be 
it  constitution,  code,  or  canon,  a  specially  solemn  re- 
sponsibility rests  of  doing  what  is  to  be  done  in  such 
a  workmanlike  manner  that  there  will  be  slight  need 
of  revision.     Particularly  in  matters  that  touch  the 


THE   ARCHIVES.  77 

conscience  is  it  desirable  that  the  presumption  should 
be  as  strong  as  possible  in  favor  of  things  as  they 
are,  and  against  the  needless  re-investigation  of  origins. 
It  is  better  to  keep  the  Ten  Commandments  as  they 
stand,  than  to  become  so  deeply  versed  in  the  methods 
of  ethics  as  to  be  doubtful  whether  the  keeping  them 
or  the  breaking  them  makes  very  much  difference  in 
the  end. 

But  while  all  this  is  true,  it  is  equally  indisputable 
that  occasions  do  arise  when  the  reinvestigation  of 
beginnings  is  imperative.  A  man  whose  house  is  on 
the  river's  bank  may  live  in  it  for  years  without  a 
moment's  uneasiness ;  but  if  by  and  by  his  neighbors 
come  to  him,  one  after  another,  with  the  alarming 
statement  that  the  current  is  wearing  away  his  foun- 
dations, he  is  a  fool  if  he  refuses  to  allow  an  expert 
to  investigate  the  matter.  He  may  personally  feel 
very  sure  that  the  neighbors  are  mistaken,  and  that 
no  real  danger  threatens ;  nevertheless,  if  it  be  only 
to  set  the  mind  of  the  community  at  rest,  and  to 
quiet  the  clamor,  he  will  do  well  not  merely  to  allow 
but  to  encourage  investigation.  The  principle  holds 
good  not  of  houses  only  but  of  treasures  of  all  sorts ; 
the  owners  of  family  diamonds  who  are  afraid  to  sub- 
mit them  to  the  judgment  of  the  lapidary,  the  coiner 
who  shrinks  from  letting  the  sharp  acid  touch  his 
gold,  are  persons  of  doubtful  wealth.  There  is  a  cer- 
tain holy  intrepidity  which  thorough-going  believers 
are  bound  to  cultivate.  If  the  Bible  have  in  it,  as 
Christians  hold,  an  authentic  message  from  heaven  to 


78       THE  PEACE  OF  THE  CHURCH. 

earth,  there  is  no  corrosive  known  to  scholarship  that 
can  eat  away  the  substance  of  it.  When  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  said  "  Search  the  Scriptures,"  he  gave 
biblical  criticism  its  everlasting  warrant. 

The  practical  question,  therefore,  is  this  :  Are  pres- 
ent circumstances  such  as  make  a  reinvestigation  of 
the  whole  matter  desirable  ?  A  great  company  of 
thoughtful  and  not  undevout  people  are  saying  Yes ; 
and  whether  they  are  right  or  wrong,  more  harm  is 
likely  to  come  of  trying  to  prevent  their  having  their 
way,  than  can  possibly  accrue  from  cordially  letting 
them  have  it,  and  starting  them  with  a  Bon  voyage. 
It  is  impossible  that  the  friends  of  God  should  really 
have  anything  to  fear  from  what  an  honest  scholar- 
ship may  attempt ;  and  that  man,  I  do  not  hesitate  to 
affirm,  who  happens  to  be  to-day  the  one  who  is  doing 
the  most  to  throw  white  light  upon  the  things  written 
in  the  Bible  has  better  right  than  any  other  living  to 
be  entitled  Defender  of  the  Faith. 

A  little  more  than  fifty  years  ago,  Arnold  of  Rugby 
predicted  the  crisis  in  the  midst  of  which  we  find 
ourselves.  ''  Have  you  seen,"  he  wrote  to  his  friend 
Mr.  Justice  Coleridge,  "  your  uncle's  '  Letters  on  In- 
spiration,' which  I  believe  are  to  be  published  ?  They 
are  well  fitted  to  break  ground  in  the  approaches  to 
that  momentous  question  which  involves  in  it  so  great 
a  shock  to  existing  notions ;  the  greatest,  probably, 
that  has  ever  been  given  since  the  discovery  of  the 
falsehood  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Pope's  infallibility. 
Yet  it  must  come ;  and  will  end,  in  spite  of  the  fears 


THE   ARCHIVES.  79 

and  clamors  of  the  weak  and  bigoted,  in  the  higher 
exalting  and  more  sure  establishing  of  Christian 
truth." 

So  spoke  a  true  prophet,  little  dreaming  of  the 
parts  a  son  and  a  granddaughter  of  his  own  were 
destined  to  play  in  the  commotion  he  foresaw. 

The  "  existing  notions  "  to  which  Arnold  referred 
were  doubtless  such  as  had  to  do  with  the  nature  and 
methods  of  inspiration.  That  the  words  of  Scripture 
had  been  actually  dictated,  syllable  by  syllable,  to  the 
writers  of  the  several  books  by  a  voice  from  without 
themselves;  that  for  the  purposes  of  composition 
evangelists  and  apostles  had  been,  to  use  the  cant  of 
spiritualism,  simply  "  trance  mediums,"  unconscious 
of  what  they  did,  —  this  was  the  notion  upon  which 
the  disciple  of  Niebuhr  and  the  friend  of  Whately  felt 
sure  that  doom  had  been  pronounced.  No  one  whose 
eyes  are  open  to  the  movements  of  contemporary 
thought  can  fail  to  see  that  the  revolution  predicted 
is  in  progress.  It  is  no  longer  held  or  taught  by  in- 
telligent theologians  anywhere  that  the  writers  of  the 
books  of  the  Bible  were  mere  amanuenses,  no  more 
personally  accountable  for  their  words  than  the  autom- 
aton chess-player  for  his  moves.  On  the  contrary, 
these  authors  are  acknowledged  to  have  been  such  in 
the  proper  sense  of  the  word.  They  are  spoken  of 
as  compilers ;  they  are  compared  one  with  another  in 
respect  to  the  facilities  they  severally  enjoyed  for 
gathering  accurate  information;  each  is  recognized 
as  having  his  own  proper  literary  style,  and,  in  mat- 


80  THE  PEACE  OF  THE   CHURCH. 

ters  where  temper  and  spirit  come  in,  his  own  per- 
sonal equation. 

But  because  our  estimate  of  the  scope  and  manner 
of  inspiration  has  been  modified,  does  it  follow  that 
our  faith  in  the  Bible  as  a  bona  fide  message  from 
God  must  suffer  shipwreck  ?  By  no  means.  When 
we  think  of  it  we  see  that  it  is  impossible  for  any 
book,  no  matter  how  sacred,  to  be  inspired.  Only 
that  which  has  life  can  breathe,  and  breath  enters 
into  the  very  definition  of  inspiration.  It  is  men  who 
are  inspired,  not  books ;  prophets  and  saints  who 
breathe  in  the  truth  of  God,  not  the  papyrus  or  the 
wax  which  serve  them  as  their  instruments  of  trans- 
mission. The  familiar  phrase  "the  inspiration  of 
the  Bible  "  must,  therefore,  in  order  to  become  intel- 
ligible, be  expanded  into  the  inspiration  of  the  men 
who  wrote  the  Bible.  The  evidence  that  the  men 
who  wrote  the  Bible  were,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
breathed  into  by  Almighty  God  in  such  a  way  as 
to  give  to  what  they  wrote  a  value  wholly  unique, 
is  to  be  sought  for  in  the  characteristics  of  the  book 
taken  as  a  whole,  and  in  the  history  of  what  it  has 
done  for  the  peoples  which  have  accepted  it  as  trust- 
worthy. 

Of  the  characteristics  of  the  Bible  over  and  above 
those  that  have  been  already  emphasized,  by  far  the 
most  striking  is  its  unity.  The  book  is  symmetri- 
cal and  self-consistent  to  a  wonderful  degree.  I  am 
aware  that  symmetry  is  sometimes  an  accidental  pro- 
duct.   If  I  throw  a  thousand  handfuls  of  sand  succes- 


THE   ARCHIVES.  81 

sively  upon  the  floor,  it  may  happen  in  one  instance 
out  of  the  thousand  that  the  particles  will  be  found 
arranged  in  such  a  manner  as  to  suggest  a  set  pat- 
tern. But  the  impression  produced  on  the  mind  by 
this  result  is  very  different  from  that  which  follows 
from  seeing  the  grains  of  sand  sprinkled  over  the 
surface  of  a  metallic  disk  arrange  themselves  in  a 
particular  geometrical  shape  in  response  to  the  par- 
ticular note  of  sound  that  has  set  the  disk  to  vibrat- 
ing. In  this  instance  we  recognize  a  symmetry 
intentionally  brought  to  pass  by  the  experimentalist, 
who  knew  before  striking  the  note  just  what  result 
would  follow.  I  do  not  assert  that  the  evidence  of 
unity  of  plan  afforded  by  the  symmetry  of  the  Bible, 
is  such  as  to  be  overwhelmingly  demonstrative.  I  do 
say  that  to  many  minds  it  has  commended  itself  as 
singularly  persuasive. 

Had  the  Scriptures  all  of  them  been  written  within 
a  year  or  within  ten  years,  or  even  within  a  single  gen- 
eration, there  would  be  nothing  wonderful  about  their 
possessing  unity  of  plan.  In  the  case  of  a  book  like 
the  Koran  the  wonder  is  that  it  has  not  more  sym- 
metry than  it  has.  But  we  are  to  remember  that  in 
the  case  of  the  Bible,  the  dates  of  the  authorship  of 
the  various  parts  differ  by  centuries,  and  we  must 
reckon  at  least  sixteen  hundred  years  to  get  the  span 
of  the  whole  arch. 

Clearly  the  most  reasonable  hypothesis  upon  which 
to  account  for  the  Bible's  symmetry,  granting  that  it 
exists,  is  the  supposition  of  an  extraneous  guidance 

6 


82  THE  PEACE   OF   THE  CHURCH. 

that  moved  the  authors  in  such  manner,  and  with 
such  force,  as  to  make  all  of  them  co-operant  to  a 
common  end.  For  such  providential  guidance,  sup- 
plied from  above,  there  can  be  no  better  name  than 
inspiration,  —  that  inbreathing  of  a  more  enlightened 
spirit  than  man's  own,  whereby  he  is  enabled  to 
"think  those  things  that  are  good." 

But  more  to  the  point  by  far  than  "  inspiration  "  is 
the  allied  word  "  revelation."  What  we  really  want 
to  know  is  whether  the  Bible  writers  do  actually  un- 
veil to  us  certain  facts  of  grave  moment  which  we 
could  never  know  but  for  such  help.  The  matters  to 
which  I  refer  are  such  as  these,  the  personality  of 
God,  the  pre-existence  of  Jesus  Christ,  man's  survival 
of  death,  the  prospect  of  an  ultimate  restitution 
of  all  things,  the  reality  of  heaven,  the  reality  of 
hell ;  these  are  points  with  respect  to  which  centuries 
of  philosophizing  can  help  us  not  one  whit.  If  such 
truths,  supposing  them  to  be  truths,  are  to  be  known 
at  all,  they  must  become  known  by  a  drawing  aside 
of  the  curtain ;  no  otherwise  is  it  conceivable  that  we 
should  become  aware  of  them.  The  study  of  Nature 
and  of  the  human  mind  may  furnish  illustrations,  and 
what  may  even  be  charitably  construed  as  corroborative 
evidence,  of  the  matters  thus  disclosed;  but  to  disclose 
them  it  is  powerless.  The  logical  mind  is  shut  up  to 
a  choice  between  Pyrrhonism  and  revelation. 

The  advantage  gained  by  shifting  the  burden  of 
argument  from  inspiration  to  revelation  is  further  evi- 
dent when  we  consider  that  inspiration  is  a  thing  of 


THE  ARCHIVES.  83 

degrees,  a  matter  of  more  and  less,  whereas,  with  re- 
spect to  revelation  all  we  have  to  ask  is,  Has  it  or  has  it 
not  occurred  ?  There  is  a  sense  of  the  word  in  which 
inspiration  is  credited  to  all  men  who  accomplish 
more  than  the  common.  Bezaleel  is  said  in  the  Book 
of  Exodus  to  have  been  filled  with  the  Spirit  of  God 
"  to  work  in  gold  and  in  silver  and  in  brass,  and 
in  cutting  of  stones  to  set  them,  and  in  carving  of 
timber."  This  is  a  definition  of  inspiration  large 
enough  to  cover  the  case  of  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  the 
Bezaleel  of  the  Renaissance.-  So  then,  if  Christians 
confine  themselves  to  a  claim  of  "  inspiration "  for 
the  authors  of  Scripture,  they  may  find  men  putting 
the  Bible  on  the  same  shelf  with  other  sacred  books, 
wedging  it  in  between  Plato  and  Confucius,  and  quite 
content  to  claim  for  Isaiah  and  St.  Paul  only  such 
a  measure  of  the  Spirit  as  they  are  willing  to  concede 
to  Dante,  Bunyan,  and  a-Kempis.  A  revelation,  on 
the  other  hand,  does  not  admit  of  degrees.  Either  it 
has  been  made  or  it  has  not  been  made ;  either  the 
heavens  have  been  opened  and  God  has  showed  us  the 
truth,  or  they  are  brass  over  our  head  for  ever. 

To  a  mind  studying  the  Bible  from  the  point  of 
approach  now  indicated,  many  of  the  so-called  diffi- 
culties of  faith  shrink  into  insignificance.  The  in- 
timation, for  example,  of  little  inaccuracies  in  the 
record,  whether  of  an  historical,  a  geographical,  or  a 
scientific  sort,  cease  to  alarm.  Are  the  great  struc- 
tural lines  of  the  whole  fabric  right  and  true  ?  is  the 
real  question.     Because  I  accept  the  erratum  of  some 


84  THE   PEACE   OF   THE  CHURCH. 

chronologist  who  has  discovered  a  wrong  date  in  the 
Books  of  Chronicles,  it  does  not  follow  that  I  am  logi- 
cally bound  to  welcome  with  open  arms  a  whole  troop 
of  interpreters  who  are  bent  on  writing  the  Resurrec- 
tion down  a  myth,  and  distilling  the  personality  of 
God  into  a  figure  of  speech.  Let  every  proposition  be 
tried  on  its  own  merits,  and,  above  all,  let  us  distin- 
guish magnitudes.  We  are  never  really  the  poorer 
for  having  been  told  the  truth  ;  but  we  are  sometimes 
frightened  into  taking  for  true,  statements  contradic- 
tory to  cherished  beliefs,  when  really  it  is  the  new- 
announcement  rather  than  the  old  faith  that  lacks 
verification.  We  do  not  the  less  enjoy  the  glories 
of  the  sunset  because  it  has  been  discovered  that 
the  going  down  of  the  sun  means  really  the  backing 
around  of  the  earth ;  but  every  now  and  then  credulous 
people  are  thrown  into  a  paroxysm  of  alarm  by  some 
pseudo-scientific  announcement  that  a  great  cosmic 
disturbance  is  impending.  There  is  a  difference  in 
the  two  cases.  In  like  manner,  if  I  am  asked  to  give 
up  the  Bible  as  the  Word  of  God  because  Solomon, 
reputed  the  wisest  of  men  and  inspired,  was  cer- 
tainly mistaken  when  he  spoke  of  the  clouds  as 
dropping  down  the  dew,  and  probably  mistaken  in 
what  he  said  about  the  habits  of  ants,  I  decline  to  be 
so  foolish  as  to  let  my  heart  fail  me  on  any  such 
grounds.  My  confidence  in  the  Bible  as  an  authentic 
unfolding  of  the  truth,  the  will,  and  the  purposes  of 
God  has  anchorage  deeper  down. 
The  simple  fact  of  tlie  matter  is  this ;  modern  re- 


THE   ARCHIVES.  85 

search  is  modifying,  —  some  say  revolutionizing,  but 
it  is  more  accurate  to  say  modifying,  old  opinions  as 
to  the  process  by  which  the  various  books  of  the 
Bible  were  brought  into  their  present  combination, 
and  made  into  the  volume  as  we  have  it  now.  Mod- 
ern research,  be  it  also  observed,  is  doing  what  it  is 
doing  after  a  fashion  not  unlike  that  in  which  Sedg- 
wick, Murchison,  and  Lyell  changed  our  old  concep- 
tions of  the  manner  in  which  the  globe  was  brought 
to  be  what  to-day  it  is.  But  the  earth  itself  is  pre- 
cisely what  it  was  before  the  geologists  began  to 
investigate,  and  the  book  we  know  as  the  Bible  is 
precisely  what  it  was  before  the  critics  began  to  criti- 
cise. And  just  as  there  are  those  of  us  who  while 
thankfully  accepting  all  that  Geology  can  really  prove 
with  respect  to  the  formation  of  the  earth's  crust, 
nevertheless  hold  fast  the  old-fashioned  faith  which 
expresses  itself  in  the  words,  "  I  believe  in  God,  the 
Father  Almighty,  Maker ;  '*  so  there  are  those  of  us, 
and  their  number  is  reckoned  by  tens  of  thousands, 
who  while  ready  cheerfully  to  concede  whatever  the 
best  critical  scholarship  may  be  able  to  establish 
regarding  the  formation  of  the  Scriptures  as  an  his- 
torical process,  are  not  at  all  shaken  in  their 
confidence  that  as  the  record  of  God's  revelation  of 
Himself,  the  Bible,  substantially  as  we  have  it  now, 
will  stand  to  the  end  of  time. 

What  I  mean  is  that  the  man  must  be  either  of  a 
singularly  sanguine  temperament,  or  else  strangely 
forgetful  of  the  oscillations  of  scholarship  in  the  past, 


86  THE   PEACE   OF  THE   CHURCH. 

who  fancies  that  the  books  of  the  Bible  will  ever  be, 
by  general  consent,  redistributed  and  renamed  to  suit 
the  conclusions  of  contemporary  criticism.  All  sorts 
of  theories  may,  from  time  to  time,  be  set  afloat  as  to 
the  proper  chronological  order  of  the  volume's  compo- 
nent parts,  and  these  theories  may  make  converts 
many  and  distinguished,  but  the  volume  itself  will 
continue,  as  at  present,  to  begin  with  the  book  called 
Genesis  and  to  end  with  the  book  called  Eevelation. 
To  the  eye  of  criticism  Jehovist  and  Elohist  may  grow 
to  seem  more  distinctly  separable  than  ever,  but  like 
flies  in  amber  the  two  will  continue  to  maintain  their 
twin  existence  in  the  narrative  as  at  this  day.  It  is 
unlikely,  in  other  words,  that  any  scheme  for  remod- 
elling the  whole  structure  of  the  Bible  will  ever  get 
beyond  the  academic  stage.  The  thing  may  be  dis- 
cussed and  urged,  but  the  moment  action  becomes 
imminent  a  still  more  recent  scholarship  will  step 
in  to  affirm  that,  if  change  there  is  to  be,  it  should 
proceed  on  lines  different  from  those  proposed.  In 
saying  this  I  am  not  charging  scholarship  with  fickle- 
ness, I  am  merely  calling  attention  to  the  fact  that  in 
the  field  of  Biblical  science  absolute  demonstration  is 
unattainable,  and  to  the  probability  that  since  such  is 
the  case,  no  one  hypothesis  will  ever  so  effectually 
distance  all  the  others  that  the  maintainers  of  it  will 
be  allowed  to  reconstruct  the  canon  at  their  pleasure. 
The  argument  against  the  authenticity  of  II.  Peter,  for 
example,  and  the  argument  in  favor  of  the  multiple 
authorship  of  Isaiah  may  both  of  them  become  in  the 


THE   ARCHIVES.  B7 

future  very  much  stronger  than  they  are  to-day,  but 
it  is  in  the  highest  degree  unHkely  that  such  a  com- 
plete consensus  of  critical  opinion  will  ultimately  be 
secured  as  to  warrant,  say,  the  Syndics  of  the  Univer- 
sity Press  in  dropping  the  one  book  and  in  subdivid- 
ing the  other. 

Not  only  so,  but  when  it  comes  to  fretting  our- 
selves over  the  detection  of  petty  errors  and  faults  in 
the  text  of  Scripture,  we  shall  do  well  to  re-read  our 
Butler,  and  having  got  ourselves  thoroughly  into  the 
spirit  of  the  Analogy  to  make  note  of  the  singular 
fact  that  none  of  the  creations  of  God  as  we  observe 
them  in  the  outer  world  are  perfect,  according  to  our 
human  conceptions  and  definitions  of  perfectness.  Of 
man  it  has  been  truly  said, 

"  The  type  of  perfect  in  his  mind 
In  Nature  can  he  nowhere  find." 

Why  stumble  then  at  discovering  in  the  Book  of 
Revelation  a  characteristic  equally  discernible  in  the 
Book  of  Nature,  supposing  the  two  books  to  have  had 
one  and  the  same  author  ?  Who,  for  instance,  ever 
saw  an  absolutely  flawless  petal  on  a  stem  ?  But  do 
we,  for  that  reason,  doubt  God's  having  made  the 
roses  ?  A  draughtsman  with  a  pencil  and  a  ruler 
can,  in  a  few  moments,  plot  for  us  on  paper  an  out- 
line of  the  perfect  hexagonal  prism  which  is  the  ideal 
form  of  a  quartz  crystal,—  the  form  in  which,  as  we  say 
(greatly  presuming  in  saying  so),  that  quartz  "ought" 
to  crystallize.     But  we  may  search  the  quarries  and 


88      THE  PEACE  OF  THE  CHURCH. 

grottoes  of  the  world  in  vain  for  any  bit  of  actual 
quartz  that  shall  conform  absolutely  and  without  the 
slightest  deviation  to  the  draughtsman's  pattern.  Are 
we  to  assume  for  this  reason  that  the  draughts- 
man has  a  better  mind  than  God  ?  or  account  the 
hand  which  can  draw  so  easily  the  lines  of  an  ideal 
crystal  defter  than  the  Hand  which  has  been  shaping 
the  real  crystal  through  uncounted  ages  ?  Not  if  we 
have  weighed  well  the  purport  of  that  ancient  chal- 
lenge, —  "  He  that  formed  the  eye,  shall  He  not  see  ?  " 
Scarcely  enough  seems  to  have  been  made  of  this 
particular  argument  from  analogy  in  recent  apolo- 
getics. For  if  we  find  what  look  to  our  eye  blemishes 
in  workmanship  which  we  know  to  be  wholly  God's, 
such  as  the  flowers  and  the  rocks,  ought  we  to  be 
troubled  at  discovering  the  like  signs  and  tokens  to 
be  characteristic  of  a  book  in  the  making  of  which 
God  may  be  said  to  have  taken  man  into  partnership  ? 
Why  not  have  the  good  sense  to  look  at  the  Bible 
as  we  look  at  everything  else  that  has  been  subject  to 
the  necessary  conditions  of  life  and  growth,  and  not 
let  the  knees  of  our  faith  knock  together  in  alarm  the 
moment  this  or  that  student  of  the  text  points  out 
to  us  some  fleck  or  flaw,  as  he  is  pleased  to  think  it, 
in  the  workmanship  of  Almighty  God  ?  Some  lynx- 
eyed  Old  Testament  critic  assures  me,  with  the  air 
of  a  Samson  pulling  down  the  temple,  that  he  has 
discovered  a  discrepancy  between  a  certain  statement 
in  the  Book  of  Leviticus  and  a  certain  other  state- 
ment in  the  Book  of  Deuteronomy. 


THE   ARCHIVES.  89 

First  of  all,  I  ask  him  whether  he  is  quite  sure  that 
he  is  right ;  but  even  when  convinced  that  his  dis- 
covery is  genuine,  1  decline  to  feel  as  seriously  con- 
cerned over  it  as  he  would  like  to  have  me  feel.  If 
God  has  seen  fit  to  inject  his  revelation  into  the 
midst  of  human  affairs,  I  am  not  surprised  to  find 
the  history  of  it  subject  to  the  same  disabilities  that 
attach  to  ordinary  history.  "  I  adore,"  says  Athen- 
agoras,  "  the  Being  who  harmonized  the  strains  and 
leads  the  melody,  not  the  instrument  which  he  plays. 
What  umpires  at  the  games,  omitting  to  crown  the 
minstrel,  place  the  garland  upon  the  lyre." 

The  Bible,  as  we  know  it  to-day,  is  an  accomplished 
fact,  and  what  it  is  it  is.  It  stands  out  before  us  like 
a  great  tree  that  has  attained  its  growth.  As  such  it 
has  a  complete  contour  of  its  own,  and  we  might  as 
well  attempt  to  kill  a  tree  by  criticism  as  hope  to 
make  away  with  the  Bible  by  philosophizing  on  the 
method  and  order  of  its  growth.  On  a  sunny  slope 
in  an  English  nobleman's  park,  flourishing  far  away 
from  the  country  and  climate  of  its  birth,  we  find  a 
stately,  heavy-foliaged  cedar,  one  of  those  great  "  trees 
of  the  Lord  "  of  which  the  Psalmists  tell,  the  pride  of 
Lebanon.  English  soil  of  itself  never  could  have  pro- 
duced the  tree  ;  the  land  in  which  it  first  had  root 
and  from  which  it  was  transplanted  is  the  land  of 
Palestine,  the  land  called  "  Holy."  But  is  it  here  and 
now  any  the  less  the  cedar,  any  the  less  "  tree  of  Je- 
hovah "  on  that  account?  Does  the  fact  of  its  being 
an  exotic  destroy  its  beauty  or  its  value  ?     No,  if  is  as 


90  THE  PEACE   OF  THE   CHURCH. 

much  a  tree  of  God's  planting  in  England  as  ever 
it  could  have  been  in  Syria.  We  notice,  here  and 
there  upon  the  trunk,  gnarled  spots  that  tell  of  an 
irregular  growth,  and  betray  some  past  departure 
from  the  normal  movement  of  the  juices  within. 
Is  it  the  less  a  cedar,  the  less  worthy  to  be  called  God's 
tree  for  that  reason  ?  At  the  extremity  of  one  of  the 
limbs  there  happens  to  be  a  dead  branch ;  it  suggests 
curious  thoughts.  Why  did  that  particular  branch 
wither  ?  All  the  adjoining  foliage  is  quick  and  beau- 
tiful and  fresh  as  ever ;  why  should  that  one  outer- 
most shred  of  the  tree's  vesture  thus  have  shrivelled  ? 
Did  disease  attack  it  from  within,  or  has  some  blight 
struck  it  from  without  ?  We  cannot  tell ;  we  are  as 
much  perplexed  as  we  were  by  the  flaws  on  the  rough 
surface  of  the  bark.  But  what  of  that  ?  Do  we  for 
a  moment  distrust  the  venerable  cedar,  question  its 
genuineness,  deny  its  authenticity  ?  No ;  we  look  at 
it  with  reverent  awe ;  we  glory  in  it  just  as  it  is ; 
we  say,  —  Truly  it  is  the  Lord's  tree,  all  the  marks  of 
his  undoubted  workmanship  are  here ;  it  is  Jeho- 
vah's cedar ;  He  made  it.  Under  the  shadow  of  the 
branches  1  will  lay  me  down  and  take  my  rest. 

Our  answer  then  to  the  question.  How  ought  men  in 
these  times  to  think  about  the  Bible  ?  so  far  as  the 
positive  side  of  the  Anglican  statement  is  concerned, 
should  be  this.  We  ought  to  account  the  Bible  to  be 
the  permanent  hand-book  of  authentic  religion,  —  a 
hand-book  open  always  to  new  and  larger  interpreta- 
tions as  fast  as  human  knowledge  widens,  a  hand-book 


THE   ARCHIVES.  91 

which  scholars  must  be  permitted  to  criticise  and  re- 
edit  with  the  same  absolute  freedom  with  which  they 
criticise  and  re-edit  the  text  of  the  secular  classics, 
but  a  hand-book  destined  to  continue  substantially 
what  it  is  to-day  until  the  end  of  the  age,  still,  as  of 
old,  the  Word  of  God  to  man. 

But  before  this  question  of  the  Scriptures  is  wholly 
left  behind,  something  ought  to  be  said  with  reference 
to  the  alleged  insufficiency  of  the  Bible  as  a  repository 
of  religious  truth.  Attention  has  thus  far  been  en- 
grossed with  the  arguments  of  the  left,  but  what  the 
Bishops  have  to  say  upon  this  subject  is  also  open  to 
attack  from  the  extreme  right.  Roman  Catholics  take 
the  ground  that  the  Scriptures  unsupplemented  by 
something  more  are  inadequate,  that  they  are  good  as 
far  as  they  go,  but  that  they  do  not  go  far  enough. 

This  theory  of  a  duplex  revelation  has  been  suc- 
cinctly stated  thus  :  "  Every  sort  of  doctrine  which  is 
to  be  delivered  to  the  faithful  is  contained  in  the  Word 
of  God,  which  is  divided  into  Scripture  and  Tradition."  ^ 
That  tradition  has  been  by  most  Protestant  contro- 
versiaUsts  greatly  undervalued,  is  doubtless  true.  In 
matters  secular  we  could  ill  afford  to  spare  knowledge 
that  has  come  down  to  us  in  all  sorts  of  informal  and 
irregular  and  unauthenticated  ways.  Even  so  precise 
a  thing  as  statute  law  demands  of  its  interpreter  some 
acquaintance  with  old  uses  and  time-worn  consent, 
with  the  things  that  "  go  without  saying."  We  should 
consider  the  historian  foolish  who  based  his  account 
1  Catechism  of  Council  of  Trent,  Preface,  Qu.  xii. 


92  THE   PEACE   OF   THE   CHURCH. 

of  a  people's  beginnings  wholly  upon  folk-lore,  with  the 
expectation  of  having  what  he  wrote  considered  trust- 
worthy, but  on  the  other  hand  to  rule  out  the  folk-lore 
altogether  would  be  almost  as  great  a  folly.  It  would 
be  unsafe  to  assume,  for  instance,  that  the  Arthurian 
legend  had  no  grain  of  truth  in  it ;  and  though  the  hero 
of  the  Robin  Hood  ballads  may  never  have  existed,  the 
ballads  themselves  certainly  throw  Hght  on  the  man- 
ners and  customs,  the  popular  loves  and  hatreds  of 
Norman  England. 

If  the  Roman  Catholic  would  be  content  to  treat 
tradition  as  illustrative,  and  not  insist  on  our  re- 
ceiving it  as  demonstrative,  we  should  have  no  quar- 
rel with  him.  The  Church  of  England  avails  itself  of 
tradition  as  a  side-light  when  in  the  preface  to  its 
Ordinal  it  calls  in  "  ancient  authors  "  to  buttress  by 
their  testimony  the  Scriptural  argument  for  Episco- 
pacy. Most  Anglicans  are  also  glad  to  take  up  with 
such  help  as  tradition  has  to  give  in  the  matter  of  infant 
baptism,  and  the  transference  of  the  Sabbatical  sanc- 
tion from  the  last  to  the  first  day  of  the  week.  And 
yet,  on  the  other  hand,  it  ought  carefully  to  be  observed 
that  the  Church  of  England  has  nowhere  given  to  any 
.  one  of  these  contentions  the  dignity  of  an  article  of 
the  faith.  The  statement,  "  The  baptism  of  young 
children  is  in  any  wise  to  be  retained  in  the  Church, 
as  most  agreeable  with  the  institution  of  Christ,"  ^  is 
not  put  upon  a  level  with  the  statement,  "  The  third 
day  He  rose  again  from  the  dead." 

1  Article  xxvii. 


THE   ARCHIVES.  93 

Acceptance  of  the  belief  that  "from  the  Apostles' 
time  there  have  been  these  orders  of  ministers  in 
Christ's  Church,  Bishops,  Priests,  and  Deacons," 
is  not  made  a  prerequisite  to  receiving  the  Holy 
Communion.  Only  to  such  propositions  as  she  has 
held,  whether  rightly  or  wrongly,  to  be  demonstrably 
scriptural,  has  the  Church  of  England  ever  demanded 
the  assent  of  all  her  children.^ 

The  necessity  of  taking  this  rigid  attitude  towards 
tradition,  if  a  religion  is  to  be  kept  pure,  is  occa- 
sioned by  the  fecundity  that  inheres  in  tradition  by 
the  very  nature  of  the  thing.  The  Bible  piques  as 
well  as  gratifies  our  curiosity.  To  one  question  that 
it  answers,  it  raises  a  dozen  which  it  leaves  unan- 
swered. The  curious  mind  of  man  cannot  let  these 
unsolved  problems  alone;  in  fact,  they  are  all  the 
more  fascinating  for  having  been  left  unsolved.  The 
interest  in  the  Sibylline  books  that  were  bought  must 
have  been  as  nothing  compared  with  the  longing 
desire  to  know  what  had  been  on  the  pages  of  the 
burned  volumes.  And  as  demand  creates  supply, 
so  is  there  great  danger  that  in  proportion  to  the 
weight  with  which  the  silence  of  Scripture  presses 
on  the  mind,  will  be  the  effort  of  self-evolving  tra- 
dition to  make  good  the  deficiency.  This  has  to  be 
acknowledged  on  all  hands  in  the  case  of  the  elder 
revelation.  We  have  it  upon  the  authority  of  Christ 
Himself,  that  in  his  day  the  Word  of  God  had  been 
^^rnade  of  none  effect,"  stifled,  He  seems  to  have 
1  Article  viii. 


94       THE  PEACE  OF  THE  CHURCH. 

meant,  by  the  traditions.  It  is  the  old  story  of  the 
sleeping  beauty  in  the  wood.  He  who  comes  to  seek 
must  cut  his  way  through  "  bur  and  brake  and  briar," 
before  he  finds  himself  even  at  the  door  of  the  en- 
chanted palace. 

A  clever  Mohammedan  writer^  has  lately  told  us 
that  the  same  thing  holds  good  of  Islam. 

"You  read  the  Koran,"  he  says,  "  and  you  think  you 
know  Islamism.  That  is  a  great  mistake.  .  .  .  Besides 
the  Koran,  there  are  traditions  which  are  as  powerful  and 
even  more  respected  than  the  Koran  itself.  It  is  difficult 
for  a  European  to  know  these  traditions.  The  whole 
science  of  Asia,  everything  which  is  good  or  useful,  has 
been  attributed  to  Islam.  It  is  an  ocean  where  you  can 
find  everything  which  is  good  to  be  known  ;  and  it  offers 
all  kinds  of  facilities,  not  in  the  Koran  alone,  but  in  the 
traditions,  for  the  progress  of  the  people." 

This  liability  to  overgrowth  which  neither  Judaism 
nor  Islam  has  been  able  to  escape,  attaches  to  Chris- 
tianity as  well.  Nor  need  the  liability  be  greatly 
deprecated  or  deplored  so  long  as  the  traditions 
pass  for  what  they  are  worth  and  for  no  more.  It 
is  only  through  gross  carelessness  on  the  part  of  cus- 
todians, that  the  ivy  and  the  lichen  ever  become  the 
destroyers  of  the  masonry  they  adorn.  There  is  a 
great  deal  that  is  beautiful  in  the  life  of  the  Church 
for  which  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  explicit  Scrip- 
ture warrant.  It  was  narrow  of  the  Puritans  to  think 
1  Prince  Malcohn  Khan. 


THE   ARCHIVES.  95 

that  no  names  were  good  enough  for  Christian  chil- 
dren but  Bible  names ;  and  it  is  silly  of  the  ultra- 
Protestant  of  our  own  day  to  demand  a  "  proof  text " 
for  every  pious  usage  that  former  generations  have 
handed  on.  But  it  is  neither  narrow  nor  silly  to  in- 
sist that  when  it  comes  to  the  ascertainment  of  the 
essentials  of  our  religion,  regard  shall  be  had  only 
to  what  stands  unmistakably  on  record.  Text  and 
margin  are  separable  things,  and  should  be  kept 
apart. 


III. 

THE   CREDENDA, 


The  older  I  grew,  the  smaller  stress  I  laid  on  those  controversies  and 
curiosities  (though  still  my  intellect  abhorreth  confusion),  as  finding  greater 
uncertainties  in  them  than  I  at  first  discovered,  and  finding  less  usefulness 
where  there  is  the  greatest  certainty.  The  Creed,  the  Lord's  Prayer,  and 
the  Ten  Commandments  are  now  to  me  as  my  daily  bread  and  drink,  and  as 
I  can  speak  and  write  over  them  again  and  again,  so  I  had  rather  read  and 
hear  of  them  than  of  any  of  the  school  niceties.  And  this  I  observed  also 
with  Richard  Hooker  and  with  many  other  men.  —Richard  Baxter. 

I  have  found  in  this  way  the  preciousness  of  the  simple  creeds  of  an- 
tiquit}',  the  inward  witness  which  a  Gospel  of  facts  possesses,  and  which  a 
Gospel  of  notions  must  always  want;  how  the  most  awful  and  absolute 
truths,  which  notions  c  isp'ace  or  obscure,  are  involved  in  facts  and  through 
facts,  may  be  entertained  and  embraced  by  those  who  do  not  possess  the 
faculty  of  comparing  notions,  and  have  a  blessed  incapacity  of  resting  in 
them.  —  F.  D.  Maurice. 

No  sober-minded  man  will  hold  an  opinion  against  reason,  no  Christian 
against  Scripture,  no  lover  of  peace  against  the  Church.  —  St.  Augustine. 


m. 

THE  CREDENDA. 

No  memorandum  of  the  first  principles  of  Church 
Unity  is  complete  that  leaves  dogma  wholly  out 
of  the  account.  Men  cannot  act  in  concert  without 
credenda^  and  since  Christianity,  looked  at  as  a  great 
movement  for  the  betterment  of  human  life,  of  neces- 
sity demands  concert  of  action,  of  necessity  also  ere- 
denda  it  must  have.  Aware  of  this,  the  Bishops  at 
Lambeth  assembled  set  forth,  under  the  head  of  dogma, 
"  The  Apostles'  Creed,  as  the  Baptismal  Symbol ;  and 
the  Nicene  Creed,  as  the  sufficient  statement  of  the 
Christian  Faith.^^ 

We  shall  be  the  better  able  to  appreciate  the 
strength  of  this  position  if,  first  of  all,  some  thought 
be  given  to  the  manner  in  which  dogma,  as  such, 
stands  related  to  religion.  It  may  be  objected  that 
this  is  a  question  for  the  schools,  and  for  the  schools 
only ;  but  the  days  of  the  discipline  of  the  secret  are 
ended.  Theology  can  no  longer  rest  content  with 
sitting,  in  pillared  seclusion,  far  away  from  the  com- 
mon resorts  of  men.  The  other  sciences  have  quitted 
their  academic  retirement  and  have  come  out  into  the 
open.     Queen  of  them  though  she  be,  Theology  has 


100  THE   PEACE   OF    THE   CHURCH. 

no  choice  but  to  do  as  the}^  have  done,  or  run  the  risk 
of  being  thought  to  have  abdicated  her  sovereignty. 
In  these  democratic  days  queens  who  are  only  such  in 
posse  make  a  poor  showing.  I  venture  therefore  upon 
a  definition,  and  ask  you  to  think  of  a  dogma  as  a 
statement  set  forth,  either  by  an  individual  teacher  or 
by  some  teaching  body,  to  be  taken  for  true,  while 
confessedly  not  susceptible  of  logical  demonstration. 

It  is  evident  that,  as  thus  defined,  dogmas  are  by 
no  means  the  exclusive  possession  of  the  Christian 
Church.  Pure  science  employs  dogma  very  sparingly, 
but  the  mixed  sciences  are  tolerant  of  it  in  large 
measure.  Geometry,  for  example,  a  pure  science, 
makes  use  of  dogma  under  the  name  of  the  "  postu- 
late ; "  the  postulate  being  an  unproved  assertion,  the 
taking  of  which  for  granted  facilitates  the  proof  of 
other  things,  and  thus  by  a  sort  of  retroaction  jus- 
tifies itself.  Nevertheless,  Geometry,  as  a  rule,  is 
shy  of  dogma,  and  deals  for  the  most  part  with  what 
is  directly  provable.  Not  so  Biology,  and  the  mixed 
sciences  in  general;  —  here  dogma  abounds,  com- 
monly veiled  under  the  name  of  "  working  hypothe- 
sis." The  so-called  "  law  "  of  natural  selection  is  an 
instance  in  point.  No  one  alleges  that  natural  selec- 
tion has  been  demonstrated,  or  is  demonstrable  ; 
nevertheless,  it  is  taught,  and  taught  with  much  posi- 
tiveness,  by  those  who  hold  it.  In  fact,  to  question 
this  particular  working  hypothesis  brings  down  upon 
the  questioner  in  some  quarters  censure  as  sharp,  if 
not  as  heavy,  as  that  which  in  old  times  fell  to  the  lot 


THE   CUEDEXDA.  101 

of  those  who  disparaged  the  dogmas  of  the  Church. 
Politics  also  and  Sociology  are  full  of  dogma.  The 
proposition  "  Universal  suffrage  makes  for  the  good 
of  a  free  people  "  is  a  dogma.  The  nation  to  which 
we  belong  sets  it  forth  as  a  thing  to  be  believed,  al- 
though nobody  pretends  that  it  is  susceptible  of  proof. 
It  is  an  American  dogma.  The  different  schools  of 
medicine  again  set  forth  dogma  almost  without  stint. 
There  is,  for  example,  the  antiseptic  dogma,  and  over 
against  it  the  aseptic ;  the  very  fact  of  the  co-exist- 
ence of  the  two  dogmas  being  of  itself  evidence  that 
neither  the  antiseptic  nor  the  aseptic  hypothesis  ad- 
mits of  absolute  proof.  Should  proof  be  ultimately 
forthcoming,  the  dogma  that  triumphed  would  thence- 
forth cease  to  be  dogma,  having  become  transmuted 
into  verified  fact.  Meanwhile,  nevertheless,  the  sur- 
geons, whether  of  the  antiseptic  or  the  aseptic  way  of 
thinking,  do  not  scruple  to  go  on  practising  in  accord- 
ance with  that  one  of  the  two  dogmatic  bases  to 
which  they  the  more  incline. 

But  if  the  thing  itself  be  so  obvious  a  necessity  of 
human  thought  and  life,  how,  one  may  very  naturally 
ask,  has  the  name  for  the  thing  come  to  incur  the 
odium  which,  as  all  must  own,  attaches  to  it  ? 

An  easy  way  of  answering  the  question  would  be  to 
attribute  the  unpopularity  of  religious  dogma  directly 
to  the  hardness  of  men's  hearts,  to  their  obstinate 
determination  to  stay  in  the  dark  when  the  choice  of 
walking  in  the  light  is  offered  them.  But  of  the  most 
intci^selv  dogmatic  teacher  that  ever  trod  the  earth, 


102  THE  PEACE  OF  THE   CHURCH. 

it  is  written  that  "  the  common  people  heard  Him 
gladly."  He  taught  as  one  having  authority,  that  is 
to  say,  dogmatically,  and  the  multitude  followed  Him 
all  the  more  gladly  on  that  account.  It  is  there- 
fore only  reasonable  to  suppose  that  some  portion  at 
least  of  the  disfavor  in  which  dogma  has  come  to  be 
held  is  a  deserved  disfavor,  the  unpopularity  an  un- 
popularity merited  and  earned. 

We  shall  be  strengthened  in  this  conviction  if  we 
consider  two  or  three  of  the  ways  in  which  the  prin- 
ciple of  dogma  has  been  abused,  wounded  in  the 
house  of  its  friends.  There  has  been,  for  instance,  a 
strong  disposition  always,  on  the  part  of  opinionated 
men,  to  set  forth  their  own  private  notions  upon  all 
sorts  of  subjects,  as  if,  instead  of  being  notions,  they 
were  decrees.  A  dogma,  like  a  projectile,  has  mo- 
mentum in  proportion  to  the  amount  and  strength  of 
the  explosive  back  of  it.  When  a  toy  pistol  is  fired 
off  with  all  the  pomp  and  circumstance  that  usually 
attend  the  discharge  of  a  three-hundred  pounder,  the 
lookers-on  smile,  they  cannot  help  it.  The  dogmatist 
in  this  way  does  dogma  more  harm  in  a  sentence 
than  he  can  undo  in  a  volume ;  for  the  thought  of 
authority  enters  into  all  our  conceptions  of  dogma, 
and  for  a  personal  utterance  to  carry  authority  the 
man  who  makes  it  must  convince  us  either  that  he  is 
inspired  of  some  intelligence  higher  than  the  human, 
or  that  he  is  an  expert  in  the  department  in  which 
he  undertakes  to  instruct  us,  or  else  that  he  is  the 
mouth-piece  of  a  very  considerable  number  of  con- 


THE  CREDENDA.  103 

senting  minds.  Whoever  ventures  dogmatically  to 
address  us  simply  in  his  capacity  of  brother-man 
makes  himself  ridiculous,  and  does  what  he  can  to 
make  dogma  as  such  ridiculous  also. 

But  not  only  have  individuals  brought  discredit 
upon  dogma  by  their  misuse  of  the  dogmatic  method, 
churches  are  in  the  same  condemnation.  Under  the 
somewhat  misleading  even  though  pleasantly  allit- 
erative title  of  The  Creeds  of  Christendom,  a  living 
divine  has  brought  together  dogmatic  utterances,  Ro- 
man and  Reformed,  numerous  enough  to  fill  three 
massive  volumes.  The  compilation  has  proved  a  most 
valuable  help  to  the  student ;  but  when  it  is  considered 
that  the  New  Testament,  the  fountain-head  of  Chris- 
tian doctrine,  is  commonly  printed  in  one  volume,  and 
a  small  volume  at  that,  it  becomes  evident  that  the 
makers  of  the  Confessions  have  very  considerably 
overdone  their  work.  Yes,  it  must  be  frankly  ac- 
knowledged that  for  no  inconsiderable  measure  of  the 
unpopularity  of  dogma  the  teachers  of  religion  have 
been  themselves  to  blame.  They  have  tried  to  make 
men  believe  too  much.  Really  it  has  been  against 
the  multiplicity  of  dogmas,  rather  than  against  the 
dogmatic  principle  itself,  that  opposition  has  kindled 
into  flame.  In  order  to  form  a  just  judgment  in  the 
matter  we  must  learn  carefully  to  distinguish  between 
essential  dogma,  — those  statements,  that  is  to  say, 
which  make  the  essence  of  Christian  belief,  —  and  the 
many  other  propositions  which  from  time  to  time 
have  been  set  forth  as  logical  inferences  from  these 


104  THE   PEACE    OF   THE   CHURCH. 

first-hand  truths.  When  a  living  poet,  in  a  stanza 
which  has  become  hackneyed  quite  as  much  through 
misuse  as  through  right  use,  speaks  of  our  "  little 
systems"  having  their  day  and  ceasing  to  be,  it  is 
not,  we  may  be  very  sure,  the  articles  of  the  Creed  he 
has  in  mind,  but  rather  those  complicated  frame- 
works of  theological  opinion  which  under  the  name 
of  platforms,  confessions,  and  bodies  of  divinity  have 
been  again  and  again  clamped  and  riveted  together, 
only  to  fall  in  pieces  as  soon  as  there  has  been  time 
enough  for  the  corrosive  influences  of  the  atmosphere 
to  eat  away  the  bolts. 

But  the  chief  ground  of  complaint  against  Christian 
dogma  is  of  another  sort.  I  have  been  making  allow- 
ance for  what  is  justifiable  in  the  unpopularity  under 
which  the  word  labors ;  let  us  now  look  at  what  is 
unjustifiable  in  it.  Men  mislike  Christian  dogma  be- 
cause of  its  unchangeableness,  its  fixity.  The  politi- 
cians have  their  dogmas,  as  we  have  seen ;  but  then 
they  alter  them  to  meet  fresh  emergencies,  and  re- 
make the  platform  as  occasion  may  require.  With 
the  philosophers  and  the  naturalists  there  is  the  same 
readiness  to  allow  for  revision.  Our  dogmas,  say  the 
metaphysicians,  we  are  at  any  moment  willing  to 
throw  into  solution  that  they  may  crystallize  afresh. 
And  ours,  chime  in  the  naturalists,  are  only  acknowl- 
edged stepping-stones  to  higher  and  larger  and  firmer 
ground ;  we  can,  and  if  occasion  arises,  we  shall  re- 
vise them  to-morrow.  But  the  Church  keeps  on  say- 
ing the  same  thing.     She  alone  among  the  teaching 


THE   CREDENDA.  105 

voices  to  wliich  man  is  asked  to  listen  has  nothing 
now  to  tell.  Her  dogma,  like  the  Medo-Persian  law, 
altereth  not,  and  that  is  why  we  weary  of  it  and  wish 
it  out  of  the  way. 

Here  again  the  Church  has  a  reason  to  give,  and  a 
sound  one,  as  we  shall  see.  Return  to  the  Apostles' 
Creed,  for  a  moment,  and  consider  attentively  of  what 
sort  of  statements  it  is  made  up.  In  the  very  first 
clause  of  it  we  have  no  fewer  than  four  dogmatic  as- 
sertions :  namely,  that  there  is  a  God  ;  that  fatherli- 
ness  is  one  of  his  characteristics  ;  that  infinite  power 
is  another ;  and  furthermore  that  he  puts  this  power 
into  active  exercise.  "  I  believe  in  God  the  Father 
Almighty,  Maker  of  Heaven  and  Earth."  What  is 
there  here  that  the  Church  can  fairly  be  called  on  to 
revise  ?  If  she  had  gathered  these  dogmas,  as  the 
political  economist  gathers  his,  by  observation  of  what 
goes  on  in  human  society ;  if  she  had  gathered  them 
as  the  metaphysician  gathers  his,  by  observing  what 
goes  on  in  the  mind  of  man  ;  if  she  had  gathered 
them  as  the  naturalist  gathers  his,  by  observing  what 
goes  on  in  the  world  material,  why  then  it  would  be 
perfectly  proper  to  insist  on  frequently  testing  her 
methods  and  verifying  her  results. 

But  the  Church  maintains  that  she  came  into  pos- 
session of  her  dogmas  in  another  way  altogether. 
She  did  not  find  them  out;  they  were  told  to  her. 
They  are  hers,  not  by  right  of  discovery  but  by  bene- 
fit of  gift.  The  first  paragraph  of  the  Creed  is  the 
common  property  of  the  Jewish  and   the  Christian 


106  THE  PEACE  OF  THE  CHURCH. 

Churches,  the  second  and  the  third  owe  their  exist- 
ence to  the  coming  into  the  world  of  One  who  as- 
serted Himself  the  Son  of  God ;  but  all  three  sections 
are  alike  in  this,  that  their  contents  rest  for  authority 
on  testimony, — the  testimony  of  men  who  have  some- 
how made  themselves  believed. 

But  testimony  once  recorded  must  remain  what  it 
is,  unless  indeed  you  can  impeach  the  witnesses. 
Here,  for  example,  are  certain  definite  statements 
made  by  the  first  century  writers  as  to  what  Jesus 
said  of  Himself,  of  life,  of  death,  of  things  present 
and  things  to  come.  Out  of  them  and  other  like 
material  the  dogmas  of  the  Church  have  been  fash- 
ioned. We  may  reject  the  dogmas,  we  may  utterly 
refuse  to  receive  them ;  but  to  ask  the  Church  to  alter 
them  merely  in  obedience  to  the  popular  demand  for 
change  is  most  unreasonable.  It  is  sometimes  granted 
us  to  forget  what  has  been  done,  but  never  is  it  our 
privilege  to  undo  it. 

*'  Not  Heaven  itself  upon  tlie  past  hath  power, 
But  what  hath  been,  hath  been." 

The  .chemist  may  reinvestigate  the  atomic  weight 
of  silver,  the  astronomer  may  recompute  the  elements 
of  a  planet's  period  of  revolution,  but  who  shall  call 
back  from  the  dead,  John,  Apostle  and  Evangelist,  that 
he  may  be  cross-questioned  and  re-examined  ? 

Has  religion  then  nothing  to  learn  from  the  new 
pages  man's  finger  is  continually  turning  in  the  book 
of  knowledge  ?     Has   the   Church   no   share   in   the 


THE   CREDENDA.  107 

harvest  of  light  in  which  the  world  of  our  time 
rejoices  ? 

Most  assuredly,  Yes ;  —  but  the  way  in  which  the 
new  knowledge  is  destined  to  help  the  Church  is  not 
by  destroying  her  dogmas,  it  is  rather  by  illustrating 
and  enforcing  them  more  powerfully  than  ever  was 
possible  before. 

There  is  not  an  article  of  the  Creed  that  has  been 
shaken  out  of  its  place  thus  far  by  any  thunderclap 
of  discovery ;  neither  is  there  one  of  them  that  has 
not  been  rendered  more  significant,  more  comprehen- 
sive, more  august,  by  our  knowledge  of  the  things 
discovered.  Holding  fast,  then,  whatever  has  been 
with  unanimity  believed  by  Christians,  let  us  read 
into  it  deeper  and  still  deeper  meanings,  as  knowl« 
edge  grows  "  from  more  to  more.'*  The  unpopularity 
of  dogma  is  but  a  passing  phase  of  feeling.  The 
ages  of  faith  have  not  really  been  outlived.  Still,  as 
of  old,  it  is  man's  best  privilege  in  regions  where 
he  cannot  know,  to  trust ;  where  he  cannot  prove, 
to  hope. 

Another  way  of  reaching  conclusions  is  by  a  study 
of  alternatives.  Let  us  try  the  reductio  ad  absurdum. 
Suppose  that  in  a  moment  of  disgust  at  dogmatism 
we  determine  once  for  all  to  throw  the  dogmatic  prin- 
ciple overboard,  how  will  it  fare  with  us  then  ?  Very 
much,  I  fancy,  as  it  might  with  an  imperilled  ship 
whose  frightened  crew,  not  content  with  casting  the 
superabundant  cargo  into  the  sea,  were  to  discharge 
the  ballast  also.     Even  when  relieved  of  what  threat- 


108  THE  PEACE   OF   THE   CHURCH. 

ened  to  sink  it,  a  craft  so  circumstanced  would  still 
need  something  to  steady  it. 

Nothing  is  more  instructive  in  this  regard  than  the 
experience  of  those  who  from  time  to  time  start  out 
full  of  hope  and  full  of  courage  to  establish  and  to 
administer  a  purely  undogmatic  religion.  Zeal  for 
ethical  as  distinguished  from  theological  interests  is 
usually  the  mainspring  of  such  movements.  It  is 
a  most  praiseworthy  incentive ;  and  whether  the  at- 
tempt take  the  title  of  '*  Free  Religious  Association  " 
or  "  Society  for  Ethical  Culture  "  or  "  University  Hall 
Lectureship,"  we  cannot  but  applaud  the  courage  that 
refuses  to  despair  of  goodness  even  after  the  cause 
of  theology  has  been  given  up  for  lost.  But  can  an 
undogmatic  religion  achieve  organization  ?  Is  it  not 
like  asking  a  jelly-fish  to  walk  ?  The  question  is  not 
intended  as  a  slur,  I  put  it  seriously.  The  movement 
I  am  venturing  thus  incidentally  to  criticise  is  no  out- 
break of  ignorant  fanaticism ;  it  enjoys  the  leadership 
of  brilliant  minds ;  it  has  eloquence  and  learning  and 
moral  earnestness  enlisted  in  its  support.  What  it 
is  dreaming  of  is  a  Catholic  Church  of  humanity,  a 
fellowship  into  which  Christian,  Jew,  and  Moslem 
may  enter  unchallenged,  provided  only  each  confesses 
to  an  aspiration  towards  the  true,  the  beautiful,  and 
the  good. 

This  new  remedy  proposed  for  our  spiritual  ills 
differs  from  what  used  to  be  called  free-thinking  in 
its  attitude  towards  Christianity.  Free-thinking  was 
avowedly  hostile  to  the  received  faith  ;  free  religion, 


THE   CREDENDA.  109 

to  choose  for  convenience'  sake  one  out  of  the  many 
names  the  movement  has  taken  on,  disclaims  hostihty 
and  mildly  proposes  conciliation. 

Free-thinking  was  essentially  destructive  in  its 
aims ;  free  religion  aspires,  however  hopelessly,  to  be 
constructive.  Free-thinking  placed  its  dependence 
on  the  head  alone ;  free  religion  both  recognizes  and 
emphasizes  the  holy  alliance  between  head  and  heart. 
Free-thinking  had  a  baldness  eminently  repulsive  to 
the  imaginative  mind  ;  free  religion  exalts  the  imagi- 
nation, and  appeals  as  readily  to  the  poetical  as  to 
the  ratiocinative  faculties  of  the  soul.  Your  free- 
thinker was  disposed  to  shut  men  up  to  hard-and-fast 
logic;  your  free-religionist  is  as  ready  as  was  Saint 
Ambrose  to  insist  that  not  by  dialectics  only  has  it 
pleased  God  to  save  his  heritage.  In  all  this  the  free 
religion  of  to-day  has  an  apparent  advantage  over 
the  free-thinking  of  yesterday;  it  deals  more  fairly 
by  the  facts  of  human  nature,  it  breathes  a  better 
flavor  and  seems  to  offer  a  richer  promise.  "  These 
Christians  meant  well,"  it  says, "  but  they  have  lamen- 
tably blundered.  Listen,  and  let  us  make  plain  to  you 
the  secret  of  their  failure."  Any  voice  that  utters 
itself  after  this  fashion,  especially  if  it  be  one  that 
has  in  it  the  unmistakable  quality  honest  conviction 
gives  to  voices,  is  sure  of  a  certain  measure  of  atten- 
tion. No  sensible  person  or  careful  observer  is  so 
completely  satisfied  with  things  as  they  are  as  not  to 
be  willing  to  acknowledge  that  they  might  conceivably 
be  bettered.     "You  may  be  right,"  society  says   to 


110  THE   PEACE  OF   THE  CHURCH. 

each  new  prophet  as  he  appears.  *'  Speak  out,  tell  us 
what  you  think.     Propound  your  plan." 

I  suggest  therefore  that  we  look  a  little  carefully 
into  the  case  for  free  religion,  as  a  preliminary  step 
towards  a  better  understanding  of  the  dogmatic  posi- 
tion taken  up  at  Lambeth. 

The  initial  point  from  which  the  anti-dogmatists 
make  their  start,  is  the  existence  in  man  of  a  reli- 
gious instinct.  This  instinct,  so  the  argument  runs, 
is  the  universal  heritage  of  the  race.  In  greater  or 
less  force  it  exists  and  has  existed  everywhere,  and  in 
all.  Climatic,  temperamental,  and  other  causes  have 
conspired  to  give  to  the  external  manifestations  of 
this  instinct,  which  is  still  everywhere  essentially  the 
same,  a  singular  diversity.  Religions,  like  plants, 
have  their  classes  and  orders.  One  and  the  same 
kind  of  life  pervades  all  forms  of  vegetation  from  the 
lichen  to  the  cedar,  and  the  scientific  mind  sees  in 
the  countless  faiths  of  the  world  only  the  parti-colored 
clothing  which  the  religious  instinct  of  mankind  has 
wrapped  about  itself. 

It  would  be  doing  injustice  to  the  advocates  of  the 
new  religion  to  press  this  last  illustration  to  extremi- 
ties. "  The  meanest  flower  that  blows  "  has  as  good 
a  claim  to  a  continued  existence  in  the  world's  flora 
as  any  other.  The  Free  Religionists  would  not  say 
this  of  the  meanest  superstition.  They  would,  to  be 
sure,  admit  the  representative  of  the  superstition  to 
their  conclave ;  but  they  would  do  it  in  the  hope  that 
the  society  of  wiser   and  better  souls  would  purge 


THE  CREDENDA.  Ill 

his  ignorance.  Hence  they  would  give  him,  so  to 
speak,  a  seat  without  a  vote.  They  are  not  so  weak 
as  to  maintain  that  all  religions  are  equally  true  and 
equally  good ;  only  they  would  make  their  amnesty, 
at  the  outset,  cover  all,  trusting  to  some  happy  law  of 
natural  selection  to  weed  out  error  in  "  the  process 
of  the  suns." 

The  illustration  of  the  flora  is,  however,  thus  far 
good  that  it  does  explain,  unless  I  unintentionally 
misconceive  their  theory,  the  notion  of  the  advocates 
of  the  new  scheme  with  regard  to  the  origin  of  the 
existing  state  of  things.  Religions,  so  they  argue,  are 
what  they  are  because  the  laws  of  the  universe  are 
what  they  are.  "We  human  creatures  are  no  more  to 
blame  for  not  agreeing  in  one  faith  than  the  brute 
earth  is  to  blame  because  she  finds  herself  belted 
with  zones  of  varying  temperature,  and  districted 
among  families  of  men  who  cannot  understand  each 
other's  speech. 

It  is  easy  to  see  what  place  Christianity  must  hold 
in  such  a  scheme.  It  is  at  best  a  religio  licita^  and 
only  a  religio  pro  tempore  licita  at  that.  Jesus  may 
have  his  place  in  the  new  Pantheon,  but  the  statue 
must  stand  upon  no  raised  dais.  The  Nazarene  must 
not  overtop  him  of  the  Porch,  or  even  him  of  the 
Garden.  Indeed  a  disciple  of  the  new  religion  will, 
if  he  be  consistent,  claim  the  right  to  sink  Christi- 
anity a  little  below  the  level  of  average  religions.  A 
late  leader  of  English  thought  plainly  intimated  that 
in  his  judgment  the  religion  of  the  cross  would  be 


112  THE  PEACE   OF   THE   CHURCH. 

improved  by  a  larger  infusion  of  pagan  virtue ;  and  I 
well  remember  the  adroit  way  in  which  a  New  Eng- 
land Brahmin  years  ago  parried  a  question  which 
some  of  his  speculations  had  called  forth.  "  Will  not 
such  reasoning,"  asked  the  disciple,  "  carry  us  back 
again  into  heathenism  ?  "  "  Say  rather  forward  into 
heathenism,"  was  the  acute  reply.  Yes,  let  the  Chris- 
tian candidate  for  entrance  into  the  fellowship  of  un- 
dogmatic  religion  fully  and  clearly  understand  that 
he  goes  as  a  contributor,  nothing  more.  Whatever 
else  may  be  allowed,  the  claim  of  the  Son  of  Mary  to 
universal  kingship  will  never  be.  Our  new  prophets 
simply  propose  to  cast  into  the  blast-furnace  of  public 
opinion  all  the  old  worn-out  creeds  they  can  lay  hands 
on,  in  the  vague  hope  that  when,  after  fusion,  the 
molten  stream  of  mingled  faiths  flows  out,  it  may 
spontaneously  run  itself  into  some  shape  of  beauty 
that  shall  entrance  mankind.  But  the  religion  we 
have  thus  far  professed  has  ever  shown  itself  un- 
friendly to  any  amalgam  or  alloy.  Christianity  is  at 
once  the  most  inclusive  and  the  most  exclusive  of  all 
religions.  It  is  inclusive,  because  it  proposes  to  itself 
no  less  a  task  than  the  conversion  of  the  world ;  but 
then  the  world  is  to  be  converted  to  Christianity,  not 
to  something  else.  Forget  this,  if  you  would  enter 
into  the  spirit  and  the  life  of  the  new  movement. 

But  why  do  I  say  "  movement "  ?  If  the  new  re- 
ligion were  only  what  I  have  thus  far  pictured  it, 
would  it  deserve  so  dignified  a  name  ?  It  might  rank 
as   a  fresh  system  of    theological    eclecticism,  but 


THE   CREDENDA.  113 

scarcely  as  "  a  movement "  in  any  adequate  sense  of 
that  word.  And  yet  we  shall  see,  as  we  look  further 
into  our  subject,  that  in  the  very  fact  of  its  being  a 
movement  lies  the  really  distinctive  feature  of  the 
scheme  we  have  stepped  aside  to  study.  For  a  num- 
ber of  metaphysical  minds  to  interest  themselves  in 
following  out  certain  processes  of  formal  logic  is  one 
thing.  For  these  same  minds  to  attempt  important 
changes  in  the  structure  of  civil  society,  in  order  that 
it  may  the  better  harmonize  with  their  conclusions,  is 
quite  another  thing.  Now  this  last  is  what  the  new 
religion  proposes.  To  its  recognition  of  the  religious 
instinct  in  man,  it  superadds  a  recognition  of  the 
social  instinct,  and,  rightly  persuaded  that  no  good 
results  can  follow  unless  these  two  instincts  cordially 
conspire,  it  says,  "  We  must  have  organization."  But 
can  there  be  organization  with  no  formula  of  concord 
upon  which  to  build  ?  Can  there  be,  I  mean,  any  bet- 
ter and  more  lasting  organization  than  is  implied  in 
getting  together  under  one  roof,  choosing  an  officer 
to  preside  over  the  meeting,  and  appointing  a  secre- 
tary and  a  treasurer  ? 

Not  if  it  be  true,  as  true  I  have  been  maintaining  it 
to  be,  that  all  forms  of  associated  life,  whether  secular 
or  religious,  whether  called  churches,  states,  confed- 
erations, fraternities,  or  leagues,  owe  their  stability  to 
a  corner-stone  of  dogma. 

The  apostles  of  ethical  culture  have  a  great  many 
beautiful  and  eloquent  things  to  say  about  "work." 
We  ought  to  forsake  controversy,  they  tell  us,  and 

8 


114  THE  PEACE   OF  THE   CHURCH. 

take  to  working  together  in  the  fellowship  of  the 
spirit  to  bless  our  fellow-men.  Quite  right.  But 
what  is  work  ?  Waiving  the  very  highest  definition 
of  all,  —  "  This  is  the  work  of  God,  that  ye  believe  on 
Him  whom  He  hath  sent,"  take  instead  some  such 
interpretation  of  the  word  as  all  will  be  willing  to 
accept.  Here  is  one  :  —  "  Pure  religion  and  undefiled 
before  God  and  the  Father  is  this ;  to  visit  the  father- 
less and  widows  in  their  affliction."  This  is  a  kind 
of  "  work "  which  all  will  agree  ought  to  be  done. 
But  how  ?  Not  simply  by  carrying  supplies  of  food 
and  clothing  to  the  house  of  sorrow.  If  there  be 
poverty  under  the  roof  it  may  be  well,  delicately,  to 
do  this  ;  but  you  are  a  sorry  "  worker  "  if  you  can  do 
no  more.  The  fatherless  and  widows  whom  the  au- 
thor of  our  phrase  had  in  mind  were  not  neces- 
sarily paupers.  What  these  orphaned  and  desolate 
fellow-creatures  of  yours  have  the  most  need  of,  and 
the  best  right  to  ask  for,  is  the  ministry  of  comfort. 
You  enter  determined,  in  a  thoroughly  anti-dogmatic 
spirit,  to  exercise  it.  You  discover,  perhaps  a  little 
to  your  dismay,  that  grief  has  questions  to  ask,  urgent 
questions,  questions  that  will  not  be  put  by.  How  do 
you  propose  to  set  to  "  work  "  to  satisfy  this  widowed 
soul?  "Tell  me,  thou  minister  of  comfort,"  the 
woman  vehemently  demands,  "  is  there  any  hope  ? " 
"  Some  have  thought  so,"  —  you  may  answer,  if  you 
will;  but  beware  of  letting  any  such  tone  of  confi- 
dence betray  itself  in  your  voice  as  might  offend  your 
brother  the  Agnostic,  or  your  brother  the  Pantheist, 


THE   CREDENDA.  115 

or  your  brother  the  Positivist.  You  are  pledged  to 
"  work  "  with  them  :  "  work  "  is  the  gracious  object 
that  has  brought  you  into  one  common  fraternity; 
possibly  these  brethren  have  happened  to  come  with 
you  on  this  very  errand  of  consolation.  Remember 
the  terms  of  the  compact.  Your  co-operation  is  to  be 
strictly  "  undogmatic,"  a  working  together  in  "the 
fellowship  of  the  spirit."  Should  you  be  rash  enough 
to  tell  those  questioning  souls  anything  defmite  about 
a  living  God  and  a  life  to  come,  these  companions  of 
yours  would,  as  they  valued  truth,  be  bound  to  declare 
after  you  had  gone  that  your  "  living  God  "  and  your 
"  life  to  come  "  were  only  make-believe.  Would  not 
the  widow  and  the  fatherless  have  been  the  happier 
had  they  been  left  unvisited  ?  Might  not  the  doing 
of  such  work  as  this  more  properly  be  called  undoing? 
This  is  not  exaggeration ;  it  is  the  simple  testing  of 
a  theory  by  the  acid  of  common  sense.  If  three  men 
cannot  "  work  "  together  in  comforting  one  household, 
is  anything  better  to  be  expected  from  those  more 
ambitious  efforts  that  look  towards  the  amelioration 
of  the  life  of  whole  communities  ?  You  may  build  a 
benevolent  institution  as  large  as  St.  Peter's,  and 
write  it  all  over  with  the  catch-words  of  advanced 
thought,  but  unless  you  have  some  better  thing  to  say 
to  the  unfortunates  whom  you  put  into  it  than  merely, 
"  Be  ye  warmed  and  filled,"  it  is  a  failure.  The  truth 
is,  this  generation  owes  its  aspirations  after  philan- 
thropy to  that  very  faith  which  it  proposes  to  displace. 
The  first  Napoleon  has  been  called  the  matricide  of 


116  THE   PEACE   OF   THE   CHURCH. 

democracy.  The  child  of  the  Revolution,  he  scrupled 
not  to  kill  in  cold  blood  the  mother  that  bore  him. 
A  ghost  for  ever  haunts  his  dynasty.  Even  so,  should 
our  new  religion  become  the  matricide  of  the  Church 
of  Christ,  the  memory  of  the  sweet  mother  slain 
would  follow  it  reproachfully  to  the  end. 

Another  fatal  defect  in  the  practical  working  of 
the  proposed  scheme  must  lie  in  its  utter  want  of  any 
cultus  worthy  to  be  called  such.  By  a  cultus  we  un- 
derstand that  growth  of  usages,  habits,  observances, 
and  associations  that  springs  up  spontaneously  around 
any  settled  form  of  faith.  The  cultus  may  be  said  to 
clothe  the  dogma,  just  as  the  flesh  of  a  human  body 
clothes  the  hard,  strong  framework  upon  which  it 
rests. 

Public  worship,  consecrated  buildings,  sacramen- 
tal rites,  holy  days  and  seasons,  these  make  a  part  of 
the  Christian  cultus.  But  only  think  how  it  would 
impoverish  human  life  were  all  these  things  to  be 
obliterated.  What  would  become  of  art  and  literature, 
to  say  nothing  of  social  intercourse,  if  all  that  they 
have  drawn  from  the  treasure-house  of  the  Christian 
Church  were  to  be  disowned  and  put  out  of  sight  ? 
Look,  for  instance,  at  the  only  substitute  the  new 
religion  has  to  offer  for  the  time-honored  observance 
of  public  worship.  A  liturgy  is  out  of  the  question,  for 
a  liturgy  must  of  necessity  be  inwrought  with  dogma. 
Where  there  is  uncertainty  as  to  whether  the  God 
addressed  be  personal  or  impersonal,  all  spoken 
prayer  is  aimless ;  it  is  impossible  to  give  any  pro- 


THE   CREDENDA.  117 

longed  utterance  to  blank  aspiration  ;  the  list  of  the 
interjections  is  brief.  Take  out  of  the  Litany  of  the 
Book  of  Common  Prayer,  for  example,  all  that  links 
it  to  special  circumstances,  either  in  our  Saviour's 
life  or  in  our  own,  and  what  is  left  ?  Nothing.  The 
new  religion  must,  therefore,  limit  its  public  exercises 
to  an  exchange  of  thought  between  mind  and  mind. 
Lectures  and  discussions  are  its  only  *' means  of 
grace ; "  a  club,  a  library,  or  a  reading-room  its  holiest 
sanctuary.  Should  we  be  gainers  by  the  change  ?  I 
venture  to  think  not.  Essays  are  entertaining  and 
instructive  sometimes,  and  debates  exciting ;  but  are 
these  things  valid  substitutes  for  the  worship  of  the 
ages  ?  Would  they  not  be  likely,  in  the  long  run,  to 
pall  upon  the  taste  even  more  seriously  than  the  dull 
sermons  and  formal  prayers  and  lifeless  hymns  of 
which  we  hear  so  much  complaint  ?  The  non-Chris- 
tian critics  are  continually  falling  out  of  patience  with 
our  "  cant."  Does  it  never  occur  to  them  that,  one 
day,  they  may  fall  out  of  patience  with  their  own? 
No  cant  is  so  unspeakably  wearisome  as  the  cant  of 
unbelief.  We  can  bear  to  be  reminded  once  and  twice 
and  thrice  that  we  are  in  leading-strings,  that  we  are 
clogs  upon  the  wheels  of  progress,  that  we  love  dark- 
ness rather  than  light,  that  the  curse  of  barrenness  is 
upon  all  our  thought ;  but  really  we  hear  so  much  of 
this  that  one  questions  what  will  be  left  in  the  Millen- 
nium of  the  new  religion  to  form  the  staple  of  dis- 
course. It  is  worth  thinking  of  whether  it  will  not  be 
well,  even  when  the  golden  year  of  Liberalism  has 


118  THE  PEACE   OF   THE  CHURCH. 

come,  to  retain  a  few  representatives  of  the  old  order 
for  the  purposes  of  practice  in  rhetorical  invective 
if  for  nothing  else  ? 

But  it  is  said,  What  need  of  any  cultus  ?  Let  life 
itself,  the  common  daily  life  of  men,  answer  for  the 
clothing  of  religion.  When  Sundays  and  Churches 
and  Sacraments  and  all  such  ancient  superstitions 
have  been  removed  out  of  the  way,  then  life  itself 
will  be  so  pure,  so  beautiful,  that  no  special  cultus 
will  be  needed  to  make  it  more  so.  Ah,  we  know 
what  that  means.  We  know  what  human  life  would 
be,  robbed  of  all  outward  aids  to  holiness.  We  know 
that  it  would  speedily  become  self-centred,  grasping, 
churlish,  sensual,  devilish.  Perhaps  it  is  possible  for 
a  few  men  of  refined  sensibilities  and  a  naturally 
quick  moral  instinct  to  cut  themselves  loose  from  the 
old  moorings  and  still  remain  themselves  generous, 
high-minded,  and  unselfish.  But  what  is  possible  for 
an  individual  may  not  be  possible  for  a  community. 
We  know  that  in  England,  for  example,  the  refined 
Positivism  of  the  Universities  as  it  filters  down 
through  the  strata  of  society  thickens  into  secularism 
in  the  class  just  above  the  lowest,  and  hardens  into 
animalism  in  the  lowest  class  of  all.  And  so  we 
might  find  that  were  the  creedless  religion  to  be  gen- 
erally accepted  here  in  America,  it  would  cease  to 
be,  as  it  now  is,  eloquent  in  the  praise  of  the  Chris- 
tian graces,  and  would  become  for  the  many  the  cloak 
of  selfishness  and  vice.  Listen  to  what  Sainte-Beuve 
writes  to  M.  Taine, —  agnostics  both  of  them. 


THE   CREDENDA.  119 

"  You  make  an  observation  upon  my  *  Port  Royal.' 
.  .  .  There  is  a  fine  basis,  you  say,  a  broad  basis  in 
natural  morality,  in  virtue  as  understood  by  Aristotle, 
Cicero,  Marcus  Aurelius,  etc.  I  must  confess  to  you 
that  what  has  always  embarrassed  the  expression  of 
my  thought  in  this  direction  and  kept  my  adhesion 
back,  is  the  fact  that  I  have  not  as  optimistic  an  opin- 
ion of  humanity  as  that  which  I  see  among  all  these 
natural  moralists.  I  am  much  more  struck  by  the 
miseries,  the  imperfections,  the  vices,  the  animal 
coarseness,  over  which  people  imagine  that  it  is  easy 
to  triumph.  This  '  natural  morality '  of  which  I  de- 
sire the  reign,  and  which  in  antiquity  was  the  lot  of 
an  elite,  seems  to  me  very  little  advanced  among  the 
moderns,  especially  if  you  consider  the  masses.  The 
nations  which  are  praised  sur  parole  and  celebrated  at 
a  distance,  are  found  to  be  far  in  arrears.  You  must 
be  a  Laboulaye  before  you  believe  that  there  is  no 
corruption  in  North  America.  Our  Algeria  is  dy- 
ing of  absinthe ;  so  are  our  manufacturing  cities  of 
the  north.  If  Rome  is  rotting,  Geneva  is  becoming 
coarse.  I  see  everywhere  an  animality  and  a  brutal- 
ity, which  discourage  me  and  adjourn  my  hope  of 
the  triumph  of  a  healthy  and  scientific  morality  ;  I 
am  contented  with  admiring  and  respecting  it  in  a 
few." 

This  is  honest  certainly ;  and  we  have  from  a  writer 
of  similar  genius  on  the  other  side  of  the  English 
Channel  a  like  testimony.  "  The  history  of  self-sacri- 
fice during  the  last  eighteen  hundred  years,"  writes  Mr. 


120  THE   PEACE   OF   THE   CHURCH. 

Lecky,  in  the  closing  paragraphs  of  the  book  that  first 
brought  him  into  notice,  "  has  been  mainly  the  his- 
tory of  the  action  of  Christianity  on  the  world."  He 
glories  over  the  great  advances  of  modern  civilization, 
with  which  he  credits  the  principle  of  free  thought. 
"  But  then, "  he  adds,  "  when  we  look  back  to  the 
cheerful  alacrity  with  which,  in  some  former  ages, 
men  sacrificed  all  their  material  and  intellectual  in- 
terests to  what  they  believed  to  be  right,  and  when 
we  realize  the  unclouded  assurance  that  was  their 
reward,  it  is  impossible  to  deny  that  we  have  lost 
something  in  our  progress." 

Was  there  ever  a  better  illustration  than  this  scho- 
lium affords  of  Moses'  boast,  —  "  Their  rock  is  not  as 
our  rock,  even  our  enemies  themselves  being  the 
judges " ? 

The  pursuit  of  undogmatic  religion  entails  yet  an- 
other disappointment.  We  have  seen  that  without 
dogma  there  can  be  no  concert  of  action  between  man 
and  man  and  no  cultus  worthy  of  the  name.  These 
are  losses  that  concern  associated  life.  But  it  is  fur- 
ther true  that  without  dogma  there  can  be  for  the 
individual  no  such  thing  as  intellectual  peace.  Se- 
rious men  are  not  content  to  catch  at  truth  as  chil- 
dren catch  at  fire-flies,  pleased  with  success  and  almost 
equally  content  with  failure.  In  the  great  emergen- 
cies of  life,  the  mind  brought  face  to  face  with  the 
problem  of  destiny  longs  for  the  ability  to  say  with  a 
clear  voice,  "  I  believe."  To  man  thus  circumstanced 
the  Christian  Church  exhibits  her  immemorial  wit- 


THE   CREDENDA.  121 

ness;  while  free  religion  offers  him  only  the  sorry 
comfort  of  a  guess. 

It  is  true  that  the  "  full  assurance  "  secured  by  as- 
sent to  the  Church's  witness  is  "  the  full  assurance  of 
faith,"  in  contrast  with  the  full  assurance  that  follows 
upon  demonstration,  but  the  certitude  attained  is  none 
the  less  satisfactory  in  the  one  case  than  in  the  other  ; 
it  avails  for  the  purposes  of  living,  and  that  is  the 
main  point.  Christ's  religion  asserts  that  it  has  a 
distinct  message  for  us ;  undogmatic  religion  boasts 
that  it  has  none,  the  broken  chrysalis  is  its  strongest 
argument  for  immortality,  a  song-bird  its  best  proof 
that  "  God  is  love."  The  Christian  Church  meets  a 
man  with  the  Creed  in  her  hands,  the  simple  Creed  of 
universal  Christendom ;  and  she  says,  "  I  cannot  force 
this  faith  upon  you,  I  cannot  compel  you  to  accept  it. 
I  can  only  say  that  if  you  do  welcome  it,  if  you  will 
make  it  the  foundation-stone  of  all  your  religious 
thinking,  there  will  follow,  as  consequence  upon  cause, 
intellectual  peace.  Of  course  there  rests  with  you, 
in  this  matter,  the  power  of  contrary  choice ;  but  on 
the  whole,  considering  how  this  Creed  of  mine  stands 
accredited  by  the  past,  considering  all  it  has  accom- 
plished in  the  earth  for  peoples  as  well  as  for  single 
souls,  is  it  not  a  more  reasonable  thing  on  your  part 
to  believe  than  it  would  be  to  disbelieve  ?  Is  not  the 
case  for  faith  indefinitely  stronger  than  the  case  for 
no  faith  ?  Does  not  the  postulate  justify  itself  in  the 
results  ?  " 

The  promise  held  out  by  the  adversaries  of  dogma 


122  THE  PEACE   OF  THE   CHURCH. 

is  an  enticing  one  ;  "Liberty  "  and  "  Truth  "  are  their 
favorite  watchwords.  But  to  be  landed  in  nega- 
tion is  to  find  one's  self  fast  bound  in  misery  and 
iron,  —  a  strange  sort  of  liberty  ;  and  as  for  "  truth/* 
what  is  it  worth  to  us  if  we  are  under  oath  never  to 
set  it  forth  without  an  interrogation  mark  attached  ? 
Augustine  puts  it  well  in  the  Confessions.  He  also, 
it  appears,  while  philosophizing  in  the  schools  of  Car- 
thage, had  heard  this  same  illusive  and  elusive  prom- 
ise. "  They  cried  out  '  Truth  !  Truth  I '  and  spake 
much  thereof  to  me ;  yet  it  was  not  in  them.  0 
Truth !  Truth !  how  inwardly  did  even  then  the  mar- 
row of  my  soul  pant  after  thee,  when  they  often  and 
in  many  books  echoed  of  thee  to  me,  though  it  was 
an  echo  and  no  more ! " 

Passing  now  from  the  negative  line  of  reasoning 
to  the  less  ungracious  and  more  congenial  positive 
method,  I  call  attention  to  a  certain  close  intimacy 
that  knits  together  two  things,  frequently,  but 
most  unwisely,  represented  as  mutually  antagonistic, 
"faith"  and  "the  faith."  Many  persons  now-a-days 
who  confess  themselves  eager  for  more  faith  turn 
frigid  at  any  mention  of  "  the  faith,"  as  if  an  iceberg 
had  suddenly  swum  into  their  sea.  But  the  New 
Testament  writers  to  a  man  are  unconscious  of  the 
supposed  dissonance.  They  never  weary  of  ringing 
the  changes  on  the  possibilities  of  faith.  Sometimes 
they  seem  to  be  thinking  of  it  as  an  appetency,  some- 
times as  an  energy  of  the  soul,  now  as  the  hand 
stretched  out  to  grasp,  and  again  as  the  mouth  opened 


THE   CREDENDA.  123 

to  receive ;  but,  be  it  this  or  that,  be  it  active  effort  or 
passive  receptivity,  faith  as  a  spiritual  characteristic 
stands  at  the  head  of  the  list,  the  one  indispensable 
condition  precedent  to  our  knowledge  of  the  God  who 
made  us. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  kill  the  climax  of  one  of 
Paul's  most  animathig  utterances  if  we  disallow  the 
contrasted  phrase,  for  he  sums  up  the  whole  record 
of  his  life's  struggle  thus,  — "I  have  kept  the  faith." 
Manifestly  if  he  had  kept  the  faith,  there  must  have 
been  in  his  judgment  a  faith  to  keep,  —  a  certain  some- 
thing to  be  most  surely  believed,  most  tenaciously 
grasped,  clung  to  through  evil  report  and  good.  It  is 
the  tone  not  of  one  who  has  guessed  out  a  philosophy  of 
religion ;  rather  he  speaks  as  the  man  into  whose  cus- 
tody there  has  been  given  a  definite  deposit  of  truth. 
Unless  Paul  in  all  this  was  utterly  mistaken,  it  follows 
that  faith  has  an  intellectual  as  well  as  an  emotional 
side,  and  that  to  define  it  as  being  wholly  and  only 
"  a  feeling  "  is  a  weak  concession  to  the  demands  of 
the  hour.  The  affections  and  the  mind  are  both  of 
them  beholden  to  faith,  and  faith  to  them.  In  these 
days  of  easy  divorce  men  clamor  for  a  separation 
between  head  and  heart ;  but  woe  be  to  him  who  puts 
asunder  those  whom  God  has  joined  together.  "  Faith  '* 
is  the  offspring  of  wedded  heart  and  head,  and  "  the 
faith  "  is  the  inheritance  to  which,  by  the  terms  both 
of  the  Old  Testament  and  of  its  codicil  the  New,  this 
child  is  heir. 

Faith  as  an  intellectual  energy  starts  from  the  prop- 


124  THE  PEACE  OF   THE   CHURCH. 

osition  "  God  is."  Manifestly  the  mind  must  accept  this 
modicum  of  fact  before  the  feelings  and  the  will  can 
have  anything  to  act  upon.  Whenever  we  see  living 
flowers  upon  a  stalk,  somewhere  we  may  be  sure  there 
either  is  or  was  a  root.  Dogma  is  the  root  of  faith, 
and  there  can  be  no  blossoming  of  the  religious  affec- 
tions that  does  not  consciously  or  unconsciously  draw 
vitality  through  that.  We  risk  nothing  in  thus  conced- 
ing to  the  mind  an  important  part  in  the  act  of  faith. 
The  vice  of  rationalism  is  not  that  it  honors  reason, 
but  that  it  confounds  faith  with  knowledge,  and  de- 
mands from  God  mathematical  demonstrations  of  his 
truth.  There  is  a  difference  between  believing  and 
knowing.  Were  there  no  difference  we  should  not 
need  the  two  words.  I  know  that  the  whole  is  greater 
than  any  of  its  parts.  I  believe  in  the  resurrection  of 
the  dead.  Yet  the  believing  is  just  as  much  an  intel- 
lectual process  as  the  knowing,  and  I  cannot  possibly 
say  the  Creed  without  an  exercise  of  the  mind. 

But  is  this  all  ?  Have  we  exhausted  the  meaning 
of  faith  when  we  have  found  that  it  is  the  assent  of 
the  judgment,  the  acquiescence  of  the  thinking  part 
of  us  ?  Certainly  not.  Faith  means  more  than  this, 
a  vast  deal  more,  otherwise  might  the  demons  who 
believe  no  longer  shudder.  The  biographer  of  Fred- 
erick Robertson  tells  us  in  one  place  how  it  was  a 
characteristic  of  that  sensitive  and  high-born  spirit  to 
be  for  ever  pondering  the  question.  What  constitutes 
the  essence  of  a  ''  saving  "  faith  ?  He  rebelled,  as  well 
he  might,  against  the   notion   that  correct  thinking 


THE   CREDENDA.  125 

could  of  itself  carry  a  man  into  the  kingdom  of  God. 
He  was  determined  that  his  final  definition  of  faith 
should,  when  he  formed  it,  do  full  justice  to  the 
heart.  And  what  docs  faith  mean  to  the  heart  ? 
Evidently  trust,  confidence,  reliance,  loyalty,  —  feel- 
ings all  of  them,  and  feelings  moreover  that  call  for 
a  person,  a  conscious  some  one,  towards  whom  they 
are  to  be  exercised.  A  child  clinging  to  his  father's 
hand  in  a  forest-path  at  night  and  feeling  safe  be- 
cause it  is  his  father's  hand  to  which  he  clings,  —  this 
is  faith.  A  woman  believing  in  her  lover's  constancy 
although  oceans  divide  him  from  her,  and  no  message 
has  come  home  for  months,  —  this  is  faith.  A  boat's 
crew  saved  from  a  wreck  trusting  themselves  wholly 
to  the  direction  and  control  of  one  of  their  number, 
because  they  believe  him  most  fit  from  his  experience 
of  seamanship  to  be  their  pilot,  —  this  is  faith.  A 
handful  of  soldiers  following  a  brave  man  on  some 
forlorn  hope,  not  forlorn  for  them  because  they  love 
their  leader  and  hold  his  courage  as  the  pledge  of  vic- 
tory,—  this  is  faith.  Heart-work  in  every  instance, 
and  heart-work  moreover  of  a  sort  that  necessitates 
a  personal  object.  It  is  only  by  a  metaphor,  a  figure 
of  speech,  that  we  can  associate  faith,  the  feeling,  with 
an  inanimate  object.  We  may  say  that  a  workman 
has  "  confidence "  in  his  tools,  that  a  woodsman 
"  trusts "  the  bough  by  which  he  swings  himself 
across  a  mountain  stream,  that  a  capitalist  "  puts 
faith"  in  his  bank;  Init  in  so  speaking  we  use  the 
words  "confidence"  and  "trust"  and  "faith"  in  a 


126  THE   PEACE  OF   THE   CHURCH. 

figurative  sense.  These  words  convey  their  full  and 
legitimate  meaning  only  when  it  is  a  person  in  whom 
we  confide  or  trust  or  put  faith,  for  we  can  only  feel 
towards  one  who  is,  or  has  been,  himself  capable  of 
feeling. 

This  position  once  accepted,  —  namely,  that  faith 
means  for  the  mind  assent,  for  the  heart  trust,  —  it 
follows  as  a  matter  of  course  that  there  cannot  be  head- 
faith  without  a  statement  to  be  believed,  or  heart-faith 
without  a  person  to  be  believed  in.  Faith  as  an  appetite 
of  the  intellect  demands  for  its  food  statements  that 
are  true.  Faith  as  an  appetite  of  the  heart  calls  for  a 
person  worthy  to  be  trusted.  Truth  and  the  true  One, 
these  taken  together  are  what  faith  demands.  How 
does  the  Christian  religion  set  itself  to  the  task  of 
meeting  and  satisfying  this  twofold  need?  Not  in 
any  one-sided,  scant,  or  partial  way ;  not  by  freezing 
all  religion  into  dogma,  nor  yet  by  melting  it  all  into 
emotion.  How  then  ?  Simply  by  so  presenting  what 
Paul  proudly  calls  "  the  faith"  that  men  shall  see  and 
own  in  it  the  living  presence  of  the  person  Christ. 
It  is  told  us  in  connection  with  Paul's  visit  to  Athens, 
that  the  philosophers  who  met  him  in  the  market- 
place were  moved  to  curiosity  and  willingness  to  hear 
him  further,  because  he  preached  unto  them  "  Jesus 
and  the  resurrection."  Here  in  four  words  lies  wrapt 
the  secret  after  which  many  a  weary  seeker  in  our 
day  has  toiled  in  vain.  Flouted  by  Stoics  and  pitied 
by  Epicureans,  Paul  preached  "Jesus  and  the  resur- 
rection."    He  slighted,  that  is  to  say,  neither  of  the 


THE   CREDENDA.  127 

two  claims  of  faith.  To  tlie  mind  he  presented  for 
acceptance  a  new  truth,  "  the  resurrection  "  to  the 
heart  a  new  object  of  affectionate  confidence, "  Jesus.'* 
BeHeve  the  fact,  believe  in  the  person,  —  this  was  his 
appeal. 

Passing  from  Athens  to  Rome,  what  is  it  that  we 
find  distinguishing  Christian  people  from  other  people 
in  the  days  of  the  C^sars  ?  Clearly  the  holding  of  a 
distinctive  and  a  definable  faith,  and  the  holding  it 
with  fervor.  Whenever  the  populace  raised  the  cry 
"  The  Christians  to  the  lions!"  there  was  always  one 
way  of  escape,  —  renunciation  of  the  faith.  On  one 
side  lay  the  implements  of  torture  ;  on  the  other,  home, 
friends,  and  a  life  of  quietness.  All  hinged  on  the 
answer  to  the  judge's  question,  Wilt  thou  or  wilt  thou 
not  disown  this  faith  ?  Evidently  an  undogmatic  re- 
ligion would  in  those  days  have  saved  many  a  life. 
But  would  the  Church  have  lived? 

"If  blessed  Paul  had  staid  in  cot  or  learned  shade, 
With  the  priest's  white  attire,  and  the  saints'  tuneful  choir, 
Men  had  not  gnashed  their  teeth,  nor  risen  to  slay. 
But  thou  hadst  been  a  heathen  in  thy  day." 

We  do  ill,  therefore,  to  set  "  faith  "  and  "  the  faith  " 
in  opposition,  saying  to  the  one,  "  Thy  dominion  is  of 
the  heart,"  and  to  the  other,  "  Thine  is  of  the  head." 
A  complete  religion  is  one  in  which  we  see  the  faith 
spelt  out  in  words  that  may  be  known  and  read  of  all 
men,  while  yet  there  is  not  one  single  letter  in  the 
whole  epigraph  that  does  not  glow  with  flame. 


128  THE   PEACE   OF   THE    CHURCH. 

The  Bishops  at  Lambeth  took  up  a  definite  position 
with  respect  to  dogma.  Their  estimate  of  the  meas- 
ure of  dogmatic  agreement  antecedently  essential  to 
the  attainment  of  unity  was  expressed  in  the  follow- 
ing words,  "  The  Apostles'  Creed  as  the  Baptismal 
Symbol ;  and  the  Nicene  Creed  as  the  sufficient  state- 
ment of  the  Christian  Faith." 

When  we  remember  how  large  an  amount  of  dogma 
used  to  be  insisted  upon  as  necessary,  this  has,  upon 
the  face  of  it,  the  look  of  taking  in  sail  under  stress 
of  weather,  —  and  in  that  sense  many  observers,  both 
within  and  without  the  pale  of  the  Christian  Church, 
have  doubtless  understood  it.  Here,  they  have  said, 
is  a  plain  concession  to  the  menaces  of  criticism. 
Modern  scholarship  has  proved  itself  too  much  for 
the  confessions,  and  the  creed-principle  is  evidently 
doomed.  It  is  not  to  be  yielded  at  once,  but  what  we 
see  is  the  beginning  of  the  end. 

Such  inferences  have  a  plausible  look,  and  yet, 
when  we  think  of  it,  all  that  the  Bishops  did  was  to 
reaffirm  the  doctrinal  position  of  the  early  Church. 
Short  confessions  were  the  rule  in  the  beginning ;  to 
return  to  them  is  unquestionably  an  acknowledgment 
of  having  gained  wisdom  by  experience,  but  is  by  no 
means  tantamount  to  a  surrender  of  first  principles, 
—  on  the  contrary,  it  is  a  solemn  reassertion  of  first 
principles.  Were  the  Creed  to  be  reduced  to  a  single 
proposition,  that  one  statement  would  carry  with  it 
as  effective  an  assertion  of  authority,  as  four-score 
sentences  could  do.     The  length  of  the  armature  is 


THE   CREDENDA.  129 

no  test  of  the  reality  of  the  magnet.     The  question 
is.  What  is  resident  in  the  steel  ? 

But  over  and  above  an  implied  insistence  upon  the 
principle  of  dogma,  we  note  in  the  Lambeth  state- 
ment an  evident  intention  to  discriminate  between 
classes  of  believers.  The  Apostles'  Creed  is  spoken 
of  as  a  formulary  for  universal  use ;  it  is  the  "  baptis- 
mal symbol,"  a  thing  to  be  written,  as  it  were,  on  the 
very  door-posts  of  the  Church,  an  entrance  lesson,  a 
part  of  the  initiative  process  itself.  None  is  to  be 
accounted  too  ignorant  to  be  taught  so  much  as  this, 
none  is  to  be  thought  of  as  so  well-informed  that  with 
this  he  may  dispense;  it  binds  all:  it  is  the  minimum 
of  Christian  dogma.  Equally  evident  is  the  intention 
to  set  forth  the  Nicene  Creed  as  the  maximum  of  the 
Church's  doctrinal  requirement,  for  this  formulary 
is  declared  to  be  the  "sufficient"  statement  of  the 
Christian  faith.  In  other  words,  the  Apostles'  Creed 
is  to  be  regarded  as  the  popular,  and  the  Nicene 
Creed  as  the  precise  and,  so  to  say,  scientific  setting 
forth  of  "  those  things  which  are  most  surely  believed 
among  us."  It  is  not  that  the  one  Creed  is  supposed 
really  to  contain  any  more  truth  than  the  other,  but 
only  that  the  shorter  of  the  two  formularies  is  by  its 
wording  the  better  adapted  to  the  needs  of  all  sorts 
and  conditions  of  men,  while  the  longer  more  com- 
pletely meets  the  requirements  of  those  who  critically 
demand  of  the  Church  her  "  statement."  And  I  say 
this  not  forgetful  of  the  fact  that  the  difference  be- 
tween the  two  creeds  finds  its  historical  explanation 


130  THE   PEACE  OF   THE   CHURCH. 

in  the  contrast  between  Eastern  and  Western  methods 
of  religious  thought.  The  Nicene  formulary  germi- 
nated in  Asiatic,  the  Apostles'  in  European  soil,  and 
each  reflects  the  intellectual  habitudes  of  the  region 
that  gave  it  birth.  In  other  words,  the  distinction  I 
have  drawn  between  a  scientific  and  a  popular  mode 
of  statement  seems  not  to  have  been  had  in  view  at 
the  outset.  Oriental  teachers  simply  expressed  them- 
selves after  their  fashion,  occidental  teachers  after 
theirs.  But  seeing  that  the  two  creeds  do  really,  both 
in  form  and  substance,  suggest  to  a  western  eye  such 
a  contrast  as  I  have  described,  the  Bishops  at  Lam- 
beth chose  wisely  in  phrasing  their  utterance  as  they 
did. 

Turning  to  the  question  of  the  adaptability  of  these 
ancient  formularies  to  present-day  needs,  I  observe 
that  the  ultimate  analysis  resolves  each  of  them  into 
the  Christian  Name  of  God.  Whether  we  take  the 
Apostolic  or  the  Nicene  symbol,  we  find  in  either  case 
th^t  the  three  paragraphs  answer  severally  to  "  Fath- 
er," "  Son,"  and  "  Holy  Ghost."  In  the  one  formu- 
lary the  amplification  is  comparatively  slight,  in  the 
other  comparatively  full,  but  one  and  the  same  tri- 
personal  framework  is  common  to  them  both.  About 
the  name  of  the  Father  are  grouped  the  thoughts 
proper  to  creation,  origin,  and  source ;  about  the 
name  of  the  Son,  the  characteristics  of  mediatorship ; 
about  the  name  of  the  Spirit,  the  unitive  and  energiz- 
ing functions  of  the  Eternal ;  but  it  is  all  one  Name 
set  forth  in  one  strong  confession ;  it  is  the  voice  of 


THE   CREDENDA.  131 

(he  Holy  Church  throughout  all  the  world  acknowl- 
edging the  Father,  of  an  infinite  Majesty,  the  ador- 
able, true,  and  only  Son,  also  the  Holy  Ghost  the 
Comforter. 

The  special  value  of  the  Apostles'  Creed  for  popu- 
lar use  and  as  a  doctrinal  test  of  fitness  for  admission 
to  Church  privileges  reveals  itself  in  these  four  fea- 
tures, simplicity  of  language,  brevity  of  compass, 
positiveness  of  form,  antiquity  of  origin.  Because  it 
is  simply  worded,  the  unlettered  can  be  taught  it ; 
because  it  is  short,  little  children  can  have  it  stamped 
upon  their  memories  for  ever ;  because  it  is  affirma- 
tive, it  encourages  hope  ;  because  it  is  ancient,  it  com- 
mands confidence ;  that  which  has  outlasted  the 
wear  and  tear  of  many  generations  will,  we  are  en- 
couraged to  believe,  manifest  the  same  staying  pow- 
er till  the  end.  It  is  true  that  "  the  new  Astronomy  " 
(scarcely  any  longer  new)  and  "  the  new  Chemistry  " 
and  "  the  new  Biology  "  have  suggested  certain  diffi- 
culties of  interpretation  in  the  case  of  two  of  the 
articles  of  this  Creed,  the  Descent  into  hell  and  the 
Resurrection  of  the  body,  the  stress  of  which  was 
hardly  felt  in  former  times;  but  the  difficulties  are 
surface  difficulties,  and  the  putting  them  forward  has 
only  served  the  purpose  of  making  our  insight  into 
the  real  meaning  of  the  phrases  themselves  more 
profound  than  was  possible  before. 

The  chief  value  of  the  longer  Creed  set  forth  at 
Nictea  in  a.d.  325  and  given  its  final  form  at  Con- 
t:'.antinople  fifty-six  years  later,  lies  in  its  uncompro- 


132  THE  PEACE   OF  THE   CHURCH. 

mising  assertion  of  the  divinity  of  Christ.  This  is  a 
question  that  cannot  be  waived;  it  is  the  old  test 
question  "  Whose  Son  is  he  ?"  To  treat  it  as  a  point 
of  purely  theological  interest  having  no  real  contact 
with  practical  religion  is  to  mislead.  Between  the 
two  propositions, "  Jesus  Christ  was  a  man,  and  a  man 
only,"  "  Jesus  Christ  was  man  and  God,"  there  is  a 
great  gulf  fixed.  Our  whole  attitude  towards  Jesus 
Christ  is  affected  and  determined  according  as  we 
elect  to  throw  in  our  lot  with  the  one  estimate  or  the 
other.  If  it  be  urged,  as  urged  it  often  is,  that  while 
Christ  was  here  in  the  flesh,  the  giving  in  of  adhesion 
to  Him  was  a  much  simpler  affair,  involving  only  an 
expression  of  personal  confidence,  the  proper  reply  is 
that  the  essence  of  discipleship  is  now  precisely  what 
it  was  then,  with  this  single  point  of  difference,  —  that 
the  present  withdrawal  of  the  Christ  from  the  field  of 
open  vision  necessitates  our  knowing  Him  by  picture, 
instead  of  by  person.  The  Creed  is  this  picture. 
To  wipe  out  of  it  the  lines  that  indicate  divinity 
would  mean  not  merely  to  impair,  but  to  destroy  the 
likeness.  Only  occasionally,  it  is  true,  were  even  the 
twelve  disciples  privileged  to  see 

" .  .  .  the  God  within  Him  light  his  face," 

and  before  only  three  out  of  these  twelve  was  He 
transfigured ;  and  yet,  just  as  we  say  of  a  portrait 
that  it  ought  to  show  a  man  at  his  best,  so  may  we 
say  reverently  of  the  Creed  that  unless  it  presents 
Christ  to  us  at  his  highest  it  fails. 


THE  CREDENDA.  133 

A  criticism  of  a  very  different  sort  is  sometimes 
l)assed  upon  the  Nicene  Creed.  Theologians  of  a 
certain  school  insist  that  as  a  formulary  it  is  inade- 
quate to  the  needs  of  the  modern  Church,  because  it 
has  almost  nothing  to  say  about  "  the  plan  of  salva- 
tion," —  lays  so  little  stress  on  the  natural  depravity 
of  man,  and  observes  complete  silence  with  respect  to 
many  of  the  points  that  seem  essential  for  the  strategy 
of  present-day  controversialists.  But,  as  a  profound 
religious  thinker  not  so  very  many  years  ago  re- 
marked, "  to  base  theology  upon  the  dogma  of  sin, 
instead  of  on  the  dogma  of  God,  is  a  mistake."  Per- 
haps it  was  by  their  clear  perception  of  this  truth 
that  the  Bishops  were  moved  to  choose  the  adjective 
they  did.  "  The  Nicene  Creed  as  the  sufficient  state- 
ment of  the  Christian  Faith  "  is  their  phrase.  "  Suf- 
ficient "  indeed  it  is,  setting  forth,  as  it  so  grandly 
does,  what  God  has  told  us  of  Himself,  and  leaving 
unsaid  what  we  may  safely  be  trusted  to  find  out  for 
ourselves,  in  our  wretchedness  and  poverty,  namely, 
our  sore  need  of  the  One  who  can  be  thus  described. 
Yes,  anthropology  can  be  trusted  to  teach  itself,  for 
"  what  man  knoweth  the  things  of  a  man,  save  the 
spirit  of  man  which  is  in  him ; "  it  is  theology,  the 
knowledge  of  the  true  God,  we  need  to  have  instilled 
into  us.  Only  let  men  become  persuaded  of  the  high 
dignity  of  Him  who  for  them  and  for  their  salvation 
came  down  from  heaven,  and  there  will  be  little  doubt- 
fulness in  their  minds  as  to  the  gravity  of  the  crisis,  the 
soreness  of  the  emergency,  that  made  such  a  humili- 


lo4  THE  PEACE  OF  THE  CHURCH. 

ation  necessary.  Among  ourselves,  the  spectacle  of 
another's  greatness  is  often  as  effectual  a  lesson  in 
modesty  as  painful  meditations  upon  our  own  little- 
ness ;  and  it  is  equally  true  in  religion  that  when  once 
convinced  of  the  high  lineage  of  Him  whom  the  Nicene 
Creed  declares  to  be  one  with  the  Father  in  whatever  is 
essential  to  divinity,  we  cannot  hesitate  long  as  to  the 
attitude  it  behooves  us  to  take  as  suppliants  before 
the  throne.  Was  a  person  of  this  dignity  "  crucified 
dead,  and  buried  "  ?  The  very  statement  carries  with 
it  an  implication  of  unworthiness  on  man's  part  such 
as  ten  thousand  penitential  litanies  would  be  insuffi- 
cient to  express.  That  "  the  Infinite  "  and  "  the  Ab- 
solute "  of  the  philosophers  is  in  reality  such  a  one  as 
the  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  such  a  one  as 
the  life  pictured  in  the  four  Gospels  would  suggest, — 
this  is  what  we  need  to  be  told,  and  this  is  what  the 
Creed  tells  us.  Having  been  told  this,  we  may  be 
trusted  to  give  the  right  shading  to  our  doctrine  of 
human  nature  without  help  from  formularies.  When 
once  the  sun  has  risen,  the  eye  has  little  trouble  in 
picking  out  the  dark  spots  in  the  landscape.  We 
conclude,  then,  that  in  spite  of  its  silence  upon  human 
nature  and  its  depravity  the  Nicene  Creed  is  a  "  suffi- 
cient statement  of  the  Christian  faith." 

Doubtless  even  after  this  shall  have  been  conceded 
there  will  remain  for  discussion  and  settlement  sun- 
dry important  questions  of  detail.  Historical  scholars 
will  have  to  have  their  say  as  to  the  limits  of  the  for- 
mulary ;  textual  critics  will  wish  to  know  all  that  can 


THE  CREDENDA.  135 

be  known  as  to  the  authentic  wording  of  it ;  while 
students  of  EngUsh  are  scarcely  likely  to  rest  satisfied 
with  the  present  inadequate  and,  in  some  points,  ab- 
solutely misleading  translation.  But  these  are  fields 
of  discussion  upon  which  I  do  not  propose  to  enter. 
Similar  embarrassments  have  from  the  beginning  be- 
set all  efforts  to  give  currency  to  Holy  Scripture,  but 
in  spite  of  them  the  Bible  has  become  the  great  book 
of  the  people,  and  is  certain  to  continue  such. 

The  strong  point  of  both  the  Apostles'  and  the 
Nicene  Creeds  as  respects  fitness  for  the  task  of  uni- 
fying the  believers  is  their  sturdy  realism.  Modern 
creed-makers  have  condescended  to  argument;  these 
ancient  voices  simply  enunciate  the  facts.  They  set 
forth  certain  great  objects  of  faith,  and  say  to  man, 
Look  at  them.  They  invite,  not  to  the  speculative 
discussion,  but  to  the  reverent  contemplation  of  things 
that  have  been,  are,  and  are  yet  for  to  come.  The 
manger,  the  cross,  the  broken  sepulchre,  these  after 
all  are  what  make  the  real  centre  of  unity.  About 
these  sacred  places  men  of  the  most  divergent  ways 
of  thinking  may  be  well  content  to  meet,  suffering  all 
their  controversies  to  be  swallowed  up  in  the  glad 
confession  that  "  God  has  visited  and  redeemed  his 
people." 

The  time  for  originating  creeds,  if  indeed  there 
ever  was  such  a  time,  has  gone  by.  You  may  make 
a  brand-new  one  to-day,  and  fondly  flatter  yourself 
that  you  have  put  into  it  not  only  the  accumulated 
wisdom  of  the  past,  but  also  all  the  newer  truth  that 


136  THE  PEACE   OF    THE   CHURCH. 

modern  discovery  has  unveiled ;  to-morrow's  critic 
will  find  a  flaw  in  your  work,  and  before  you  are  an 
old  man  yourself  your  creed  will  have  been  forgotten. 
Meanwhile,  there  will  live  on,  while  you  live  and  after 
you  have  gone,  those  ancient  formularies,  incompara- 
ble for  simplicity  and  sturdy  strength,  which  have 
been  the  shelter  of  holy  and  humble  men  of 'heart 
through  many  generations,  —  "I  believe  in  God  the 
Father  Almighty  "  their  first  words  ;  "  the  life  of  the 
world  to  come  "  their  last. 


IV- 

THE   SIGNS   AND   SEALS, 


All  things,  as  many  as  pertain  to  offices  and  matters  ecclesiastical,  be 
full  of  divine  significations  and  mysteries,  and  overflow  with  a  celestial 
sweetness;  if  so  be  that  a  man  be  diligent  in  his  stud}^  of  them,  and  know 
how  to  draw  honey  from  the  rock,  and  oil  from  the  hardest  stone.  .  .  . 
Wherefore  I,  "William,  by  the  alone  tender  mercy  of  God,  Bishop  of  the 
Holy  Church  which  is  in  Mende,  will  knock  diligently  at  the  door,  if  so  be 
that  the  Key  of  David  will  open  unto  me;  that  the  King  may  bring  me  in 
to  his  treasury  and  show  unto  me  the  heavenly  pattern  which  was  showed 
unto  Moses  in  the  mount.  —Durandus.     Preface  to  the  Rationale. 


Because  there  are  two  great  sermons  of  the  Gospel,  which  are  the  sum 
total  and  abbreviative  of  the  whole  word  of  God,  the  great  messages  of  the 
Word  incarnate,  Christ  was  pleased  to  invest  these  two  words  with  two  sacra- 
ments, and  assist  those  two  sacraments,  as  He  did  the  whole  word  of  God, 
with  the  presence  of  his  Spirit,  that  in  them  we  might  do  more  signally  and 
solemnly  what  was  in  the  ordinary  ministrations  done  plainly  and  without 
extraordinary  regards.  — Jeremy  Taylor. 


IV. 

THE   SIGNS  AND  SEALS. 

Having  affirmed  the  relation  of  the  Scriptures  and 
of  the  Creeds  to  unity,  the  Bishops  at  Lambeth  give 
tlie  third  place  in  their  summary  of  essentials  to  "  the 
Sacraments."  Their  minimum  under  this  head  is  thus 
defined  :  — 

"  The  two  Sacraments  ordained  by  Christ  himself,  — 
Baptism  and  the  Supper  of  the  Lord,  —  ministered  with 
unfailing  use  of  Chrisfs  loords  of  institution,  and  of 
the  elements  ordained  by  Himy 

Thus  addressed,  we  find  ourselves  face  to  face  with 
the  great  question  of  symbolism,  —  the  origin  of  it,  the 
uses  of  it,  the  measure  of  it.  In  the  whole  territory 
of  religious  thought  there  is  scarcely  a  patch  of  ground 
that  has  been  more  hotly  contested.  Some  go  the 
length  of  making  symbolism  and  religion  contermin- 
ous. Take  away  our  tokens,  they  declare,  and  you 
extinguish  our  faith.  Others  again  are  so  nervously 
sensitive  to  the  peril  of  conceding  to  the  outward 
and  visible  sign  the  honors  rightfully  due  only  to  the 
inward  and  invisible  thing  signified,  that  they  let 
their  dislike  of  symbolism  carry  them  to  the  point  of 
setting  aside,  as  having  been  intended  for  merely 
temporary  use,  even  the  two  sacraments  ordained  by 


140  THE  PEACE  OF  THE  CHURCH. 

Christ  Himself.  Divergencies  so  grave  as  this  are 
never  without  cause  ;  the  origin  of  them  is  usually 
to  be  sought  far  back  in  the  very  groundwork  of 
human  nature  itself.  But  formidable  though  the 
task  of  search  may  look,  we  are  bound  to  undertake 
it ;  for  we  shall  find  it  impossible  to  do  justice  to  the 
position  taken  up  at  Lambeth  unless  we  can  first 
attain  to  clear  notions  with  respect  to  certain  prin- 
ciples that  underlie,  not  the  two  sacraments  only,  but 
equally  whatsoever  else  there  may  be  in  life  that 
deserves  to  be  called  sacramental.  Undoubtedly  the 
nexus  that  binds  symbolism  to  religion  is  a  knotted 
and  tangled  skein ;  but  unless  we  can  somehow  con- 
trive to  straighten  out  the  threads,  we  shall  have  to 
reconcile  ourselves,  as  best  we  may,  to  a  confused 
theology.  To  so  disappointing  a  conclusion  we  ought 
not  to  let  ourselves  be  shut  up  without  effort. 

By  a  symbol  is  commonly  meant  either  an  object  or 
an  action  understood  to  be  emblematic  and  represen- 
tative of  some  spiritual,  or,  if  not  spiritual,  at  any  rate 
invisible  reality.  Tersely  defined,  symbolism  is  that 
whereby  the  outward  eye  of  the  body  aids  the  inner  eye 
of  the  mind  in  the  exercise  of  its  own  proper  vision. 
I  say  this,  not  forgetful  of  the  fact  that  forms  of  words 
are  sometimes  spoken  of  as  symbols,  and  this  too  in 
direct  connection  with  theology.  A  writer  on  dogma- 
tics, when  he  treats  of  symbols  and  symbolism,  has  in 
mind  creeds  and  the  study  of  them;  forms  of  faith, 
and  not  at  all  such  forms  as  come  under  the  definition 
I  just  now  gave.     Thus  we  read  in  Church  history  of 


THE   SIGNS   AND   SEALS.  141 

"  the  symbol  of  Nicsea,"  "  the  Athanasian  symbol," 
"  the  symbolical  books  of  the  Reformation  ; "  and,  in 
fact,  this  very  smnmary  we  are  studying  has,  as  we 
have  just  seen,  the  expression,  "  the  Apostles'  Creed, 
as  the  baptismal  symboV^  This  is  clearly  a  very  dif- 
ferent use  of  language  from  that  which  we  follow 
when  we  speak  of  incense  as  a  symbol ;  or  of  lights, 
vestments,  bowings,  crossings,  and  genuflexions  as 
symbolic. 

The  reason  why  one  and  the  same  word  should  have 
two  such  apparently  dissimilar  meanings,  is  not  far  to 
seek  ;  and  since  it  will  involve  no  very  prolonged 
excursus  into  the  region  of  etymology,  I  shall  ask  you 
to  go  with  me  on  the  search. 

"  Symbol  "  comes  from  a  familiar  Greek  verb,  mean- 
ing to  throw  together.  But  one  of  the  commonest  mo- 
tives for  throwing  things  together  is  that  they  may  be 
compared,  and  their  points  of  likeness  and  of  unlikeness 
brought  to  view.  This  is  just  what  is  accomplished 
by  the  material  symbol.  By  aid  of  it  the  visible  and 
the  invisible,  the  thing  seen  and  the  thing  unseen  are 
thrown  together,  collated,  so  to  speak,  in  order  that 
by  the  aid  of  the  more  familiar  the  less  familiar  may 
be  understood,  as  when  we  make  black  the  symbol  of 
sorrow,  or  liglit  the  symbol  of  truth,  or  iveeds  the 
symbol  of  the  spreading  power  that  seems  to  inhere 
in  wickedness.  This  is  plain  enough  ;  but  how  came 
creeds  ever  to  be  known  as  symbols  ?  What  is  there 
about  sharp-cut  verbal  statements  of  doctrine  that  en- 
titles them  to  be  given  the  same  name  by  which  we 


142  THE   PEACE   OF   THE   CHURCH. 

describe  a  token  or  emblem  ?  Why,  indeed,  unless  it 
be  that  words  when  we  look  at  them  long  enough  are 
seen  to  be  themselves  nothing  but  emblems  of  the 
unseen  realities  for  which  they  stand  ?  All  language 
is  in  its  very  nature  figurative,  representative ;  and,  in 
the  last  analysis,  is  found  to  be  a  mere  aggregation 
of  symbols.  This  fact  forces  itself  upon  us  in  such 
expressions  as,  "  the  head  of  the  army  "  and  "  the 
foot  of  the  mountain."  It  is  less  evident  when  we 
speak  of  an  action  as  "sublime,"  or  of  a  man  as 
"  ambitious ; "  but  a  glance  at  the  Latin  lexicon 
shows  us  that  these  phrases  are  in  reality  every 
bit  as  figurative  as  the  others.  The  sentence  "  God 
is  a  spirit "  would  seem  to  be,  on  the  face  of  it,  the 
very  negation  of  symbolism.  What  could  be  further 
from  our  notion  of  material  things  than  "  spirit," 
and  yet  — 

*♦  The  spirit  doth  but  mean  the  breath." 

Archbishop  Trench,  in  his  "  Synonymes  of  the  New 
Testament,"  quotes  approvingly  Jerome's  remark  on 
the  Apocalypse :  "  There  are  in  it  as  many  sacra- 
ments as  there  are  words."  But  why  not  give  to 
Jerome's  pithy  statement  a  still  wider  application  ? 
Why  limit  it  to  the  last  book  of  the  Bible  ?  Why 
not  say  of  "Webster's  Unabridged,"  Quot  verha.j  tot 
sacramenta  ?  For  it  certainly  is  true  of  all  words,  with- 
out exception,  that  they  are  sacraments  in  the  sense 
of  being  emblems,  —  representative  signs  of  the  reali- 
ties for  which  they  stand ;  the  main  difference  between 


THE   SIGNS   AND   SEALS.  143 

them  and  other  tokens  being  that  in  the  one  case  it  is 
the  eye,  and  in  the  other  case  the  ear,  that  is  addressed. 
"  Words,"  says  Hobbes,  "  are  wise  men's  counters, 
.  .  .  but  they  are  the  money  of  fools."  The  maxim  is 
harshly  phrased,  but  it  gives  us  the  substance  of  the 
whole  matter  in  a  nutshell,  and  abundantly  justifies 
the  instinct  that  led  the  early  Christians,  with  only  a 
dim  consciousness  perhaps  of  the  reason  why  they  did 
so,  to  call  their  forms  of  sound  words  "  symbols ; "  for 
a  creed,  regarded  as  a  summary  or  compendium  of 
"  the  words  of  eternal  life,"  is  notably  a  symbol  of 
God's  thought. 

So  then,  if  we  cared  to  enlarge  our  first  definition 
so  as  to  make  it  cover  both  the  dogmatic  and  the 
ritual  uses  of  the  word  we  are  studying,  we  might 
affirm  symbolism  to  be  the  conversion  of  the  invisible 
into  terms  of  the  visible,  whether  by  the  agency  of 
objects  or  of  sounds. 

Profoundly  studied,  the  two  sacraments  ordained 
by  Christ  himself  are  seen  to  combine  both  of  these 
characteristics  of  symbolism,  —  were  intended,  that  is 
to  say,  to  help  us  both  by  eye  and  ear.  They  are 
not  dumb  tokens,  they  are  vocal ;  there  are  words 
attached  to  each,  and  of  these  words  the  Lambeth 
platform  insists  that  they  be  unfailingly  employed  as 
part  and  parcel  of  the  actions  to  which  they  have 
been  by  the  voice  of  Christ  authoritatively  attached. 
Both  of  the  language  of  institution  and  of  the  elements 
ordained,  there  is  to  be,  so  the  Declaration  runs,  "  un- 
failing use." 


144  THE  PEACE   OF   THE   CHURCH. 

But  while  all  this  is  true,  we  cannot  help  feeling 
that  in  the  case  of  the  sacraments,  the  material 
symbolism,  as  contrasted  with  the  verbal,  has  the 
predominance  and  was  meant  to  have  it.  They  are 
never  spoken  of  as  doctrines,  though  they  might  very 
properly  have  been  called  that,  were  the  lessons  con- 
veyed in  the  respective  formulas  of  institution  the 
only  thing  intended  to  be  had  in  mind.  In  fact,  they 
are  rather  actions  accompanied  by  words,  than  words 
accompanied  by  actions ;  neither  word  nor  action, 
however,  having  value  of  its  own  save  as  related 
to  the  sacred  reality  to  which  the  whole  symbolism 
points. 

We  return,  therefore,  for  the  present  to  the  study 
of  material  as  distinguished  from  verbal  symbolism, 
persuaded  that  here,  rather  than  elsewhere,  the  clew 
to  a  just  interpretation  of  the  sacraments  is  to  be 
sought. 

We  must  remember  that  whatever  else  and  more 
than  signs  the  sacraments  may  be,  signs,  in  the  first 
instance  and  upon  the  face  of  things,  they  unques- 
tionably are.  No  alarmist  cry  of  "  Zuinglianism  !  " 
can  put  out  of  remembrance  the  fact  that  the  Book 
of  Common  Prayer  answers  the  question,  "  What 
meanest  thou  by  this  word  '  Sacrament '  ?  "  as  follows, 
"  I  mean  an  outward  and  visible  sign." 

As  to  what  the  outward  and  visible  sign  imports 
and  conveys,  that  is  a  matter  for  further  instruc- 
tion; but  that  sacraments  present  themselves  to  our 
attention  first  of  all  as  signs,  cannot  be  gainsaid. 


THE   SIGNS   AND   SEALS.  145 

I  remark,  then,  that  material  symbols  or  signs  may 
best  be  classified,  and  most  advantageously  studied, 
as  (a)  commemorative,  {h)  representative,  and  (0 
effectual.  A  commemorative  symbol  is  one  that 
serves  to  keep  alive  the  memory  of  a  past  event. 
Medals  and  monuments  are  of  this  order.  Some- 
times there  is  an  evident  connection  between  the 
symbol  and  the  fact  commemorated,  sometimes  there 
is  none.  Medals  usually  tell  their  own  story  to  the 
eye,  but  monuments  have  often  to  depend  upon  oral 
tradition  to  interpret  them.  There  is  nothing  for 
example  in  the  mere  sight  of  the  obelisk  on  Bunker 
Hill  to  suggest  to  the  mind  of  a  wholly  ignorant  per- 
son the  fact  that  a  battle  was  there  fought.  The 
pillar  Jacob  set  up  at  Bethel,  and  the  heap  of  stones 
he  and  Laban  piled  up  and  called  Mizpah,  were  both 
of  them  commemorative  symbols,  the  one  of  a  vision, 
the  other  of  a  covenant.  Joshua  gave  a  like  charac- 
ter to  the  twelve  stones  he  caused  to  be  laid  on  the 
bed  of  Jordan,  when  he  said,  "  These  stones  shall  be 
for  a  memorial." 

As  civilization  advances  and  history  begins  to  take 
the  place  of  tradition,  commemorative  symbols,  pure 
and  simple,  fall  more  or  less  into  disuse.  Medals  are 
still  struck  and  monuments  built  in  connection  with 
historical  events,  but  nobody  accounts  our  need  of 
these  things  imperative,  as  it  used  to  be  accounted 
before  the  invention  of  printing.  In  cases  where  the 
ancients  would  have  heaped  up  stones,  we  make  a 
book  and  store  it  in  a  library.     Still  the  liking  for 

10 


146  THE  PEACE   OF   THE   CHURCH. 

symbols  solely  commemorative  is  by  no  means  extinct, 
as  the  countless  memorial  buildings  and  statues  set 
up  in  our  own  country  since  the  civil  war  abundantly 
testify. 

What  I  have  called  a  "  representative "  symbol  is 
one  that  images,  not  a  past  event  as  the  commem- 
orative symbol  does,  but  a  present  though  invisible 
reality.  The  universe  is  full  of  symbolism  of  this 
sort,  and  human  speech  is,  as  I  have  already  pointed 
out,  largely  if  not  entirely  based  upon  it.  Represen- 
tative symbolism  is,  indeed,  the  very  food  and  drink 
of  imaginative  souls  ;  poets  cannot  live  without  it, 
and  philosophers  and  theologians  are  almost  as 
closely  dependent  upon  it  as  they.  In  fact,  some 
have  ventured  to  assert  that  the  whole  frame  of 
nature,  rightly  apprehended,  is  only  one  vast  scheme 
of  representative  symbolism,  a  delicately  articulated 
and  carefully  enunciated  Word  of  God  to  man.  "  With- 
out a  parable  spake  He  not  unto  them."  We  may  not 
be  prepared  to  go  all  lengths  with  Swedenborg,  and  to 
hold  as  he  does  that  Nature  is  throughout,  and  in 
the  minutest  details,  a  counterpart  and  metaphor 
of  things  invisible  ;  still  less  may  we  be  willing  to 
accept  his  arbitrary  and  often  grotesque  interpreta- 
tions ;  but  no  thoughtful  student  in  any  department 
of  human  knowledge  can  go  far  without  discovering 
his  dependence  upon  representative  symbolism  for 
the  very  tools  with  which  he  is  to  work. 

Effectual  symbols  (the  expression  has  an  Anglican 
sanction)  are  those  that  not  only  represent  outwardly 


THE   SIGNS   AND   SEALS.  147 

either  a  past  event  or  an  invisible  fact,  but  more  than 
this  are  actually  charged  with  power  to  bring  about 
results.  The  coromission  of  an  army  officer  is  a  good 
illustration.  The  commission  is  really  given  at  the 
moment  when  the  appointing  power,  be  it  king  or 
governor,  has  decided  upon  its  man,  but  the  "  effectual 
symbol "  of  the  commission  is  the  signed  and  sealed 
piece  of  parchment  or  paper  that  empowers  the  ap- 
pointee to  act  in  his  new  capacity. 

Again,  the  essence  of  marriage  undoubtedly  lies  in 
the  mutual  consent  of  a  man  and  a  w^oman  to  be  hus- 
band and  wife.  This  is  what  constitutes  the  spiritual 
fact.  Nevertheless  society  rightly  refuses  to  recognize 
any  marriage  as  lawful  or  genuine  when  the  "  effectual 
symbol  "  of  some  ceremony,  either  secular  or  religious, 
has  been  omitted.  The  invisible  fact  must  consent  to 
let  itself  be  expressed  by  a  tangible  sign,  ring,  ser- 
vice, certificate,  what  you  please,  or  it  passes  for  no 
fact  at  all. 

But  while  we  distinguish  between  these  three  sorts 
of  symbols,  the  commemorative,  the  representative, 
and  the  effectual,  we  must  guard  ourselves  against 
supposing  that  the  three  are  necessarily  exclusive  of 
one  another.  A  symbol  may  be  solely  commemora- 
iive,  or  solely  representative,  or  solely  effectual ;  but  it 
is  perfectly  possible  for  any  two  of  these  character- 
istics, or,  indeed,  for  all  three  of  them,  to  be  com- 
bined in  a  single  act  or  object.  A  good  instance  of 
such  a  combination  is  afforded  by  our  national  flag, 
which  exhibits  the  threefold  symbolism  in  its  com- 


148  THE   PEACE   OF   THE   CHURCH. 

pletencss.  The  thirteen  stripes  of  alternate  white 
and  red  make  the  flag  a  commemorative  symbol. 
They  recall  the  historical  and  unchangeable  fact  that 
the  Colonies  from  which  the  present  States  have 
grown  were,  at  the  time  of  the  formation  of  the 
federal  government,  in  number  thirteen.  But  the 
usage  which  provides  that  with  the  accession  of 
every  fresh  State  a  new  star  shall  be  added  to  those 
already  emblazoned  on  the  field,  makes  the  flag  a 
representative  symbol  as  well,  for  the  cluster  is  the 
emblem  of  the  present  fact  that  in  the  unity  of  the 
Republic  as  many  commonwealths  have  place  as  there 
are  stars  displayed.  Thus  the  flag  is  seen  to  be  at 
once  historically  commemorative  and  politically  repre- 
sentative. But  more  even  than  this  ;  for  the  flag 
becomes  what  we  know  as  an  effectual  symbol  when- 
ever it  is  employed  for  the  purpose  of  asserting  sove- 
reignty. When  the  stars  and  stripes  were  first  hoisted 
in  Alaska,  the  flag  served  as  the  effectual  symbol  of 
the  transfer  of  that  territory  from  Russian  to  Ameri- 
can jurisdiction.  Can  we  wonder  at  the  power  of 
symbolism  over  the  affections  ?  Can  we  wonder  that 
for  a  flag  some  "  would  even  dare  to  die  "  ?  I  have 
thus  far  intentionally  drawn  the  most  of  my  illus- 
trations from  the  field  of  secular  life,  with  a  view  to 
making  it  plain  that  symbolism  is  not  an  affair  of  reli- 
gion only,  but  that  it  enters  and  re-enters  continually 
upon  the  area  of  our  daily  interests  and  occupations. 

Confining  ourselves  now  to  "  effectual "  symbols,  with 
a  view  to  the  concentration  of  our  thought  upon  the 


THE   SIGNS   AND  SEALS.  149 

sacraments,  we  shall  do  well  to  make  note  of  a  cer- 
tain diversity  in  the  methods  whereby  the  effectual 
symbols  bring  their  effects  to  pass.  A  symbol  may  be 
of  such  a  sort  as  to  become  effectual  mainly  through 
its  didactic  power  as  an  object-lesson ;  or  again  through 
its  control  over  the  heart,  either  as  a  pledge  of  reas- 
surance or  as  a  means  for  the  actual  conveyance  of 
blessing. 

That  symbolic  actions  and  objects  do  have  a  didac- 
tic or  educational  value,  and  that  their  effect  in  this 
direction  is  a  very  real  effect,  Christian  people  now- 
a-days  are  pretty  generally  agreed.  It  is  in  most 
communions  simply  a  question  of  more  or  less,  —  the 
general  principle  is  admitted.  Time  was  when  an 
open  Bible,  an  oil  lamp  of  antique  pattern,  and  a  few 
other  emblems  of  the  sort  found  in  printers'  sample 
books,  made  up  all  the  symbolism  the  average  Prot- 
estant would  allow  himself ;  but  now,  even  the  icono- 
clast, so  soft  have  manners  become,  refuses  to  lay 
about  him  indiscriminately  and  holds  his  hammer  at 
a  poise  before  deciding  to  strike.  Everybody  knows 
what  fierce  battles  were  fought  in  Reformation  times 
over  the  sign  of  the  cross  in  baptism  and  the  use  of 
the  ring  in  marriage.  We  must  not  say  too  hastily 
that  these  contests  were  idle.  So  long  as  the  sign  of 
the  cross  was  looked  upon  by  multitudes  of  ignorant 
people  as  a  form  of  exorcism,  and  so  long  as  the 
ring  was  supposed  to  carry  a  charm  with  it,  opposi- 
tion to  these  really  innocent  tokens  was  certainly  not 
blameworthy,  even  though  we  may  judge  it  to  have 


150  THE  PEACE  OF   THE   CHURCH. 

been  excessive.  Men  do  right  to  resist  stoutly  what- 
ever they  honestly  believe  to  be  the  symbolism  of 
falsehood. 

As  respects  wealth  of  didactic  power  the  two  sac- 
raments differ  widely.  The  symbolism  of  Holy  Bap- 
tism is  exceedingly  simple ;  the  symbolism  of  Holy 
Communion  exceedingly  complex.  In  Baptism,  the 
lustral  feature  is  the  main  thing.  The  idea  meant  to 
be  suggested  to  the  eye  by  the  "water  wherein  the 
person  is  baptized  "  is  the  cleansing  of  the  soul.  Our 
Lord  in  his  discourses  uses  water  as  the  emblem  of 
that  which  alone  can  quench  spiritual  thirst ;  but 
such  is  clearly  not  the  mystical  or  figurative  value 
of  this  element  as  employed  in  baptism.  Here  its 
main  purpose  is  to  convey  to  the  mind,  through  the 
agency  of  the  sense  of  sight,  a  firm  persuasion  that  as 
the  body  has  been  "  washed  with  pure  water  "  so  the 
soul  has  in  some  sense,  actual  or  hypothetical,  we  will 
not  pause  to  argue  which,  similarly  been  made  clean. 
"  Ye  were  washed,  ye  were  sanctified,"  writes  Paul  to 
his  Corinthians,  remonstrating  with  them  for  their 
lapse  into  the  impurities  from  which  the  water  of 
Baptism  ought  to  have  cut  them  off  as  by  a  Red 
Sea  flood  for  ever. 

When  Baptism  is  administered  by  immersion,  there 
comes  in  the  secondary  symbolism  of  burial.  The 
man  goes  down  into  the  grave  of  waters  in  order  that, 
leaving  there  the  dead  tissues  of  a  former  self,  he 
presently  may  rise  again  into  the  pureness,  freshness, 
newness  of  the  life  called  holy.     But  for  the  sanction 


THE   SIGNS   AND   SEALS.  151 

twice  given  to  it  in  the  writings  of  St.  Paul,  this  in- 
terpretation of  the  figurative  significance  of  Baptism 
would  probably  strike  us  as  far-fetched.  It  certainly 
cannot  be  said  to  commend  itself  to  the  mind  of  the 
observer  as  promptly  as  the  other  and  more  familiar 
translation  of  the  sacramental  action  does. 

Studied  as  an  effectual  symbol,  Baptism  is  found  to 
have  for  a  chief  end  and  aim  the  transfer  of  the  per- 
son washed  and  cleansed  from  one  environment  to 
another.  At  least  this  would  appear  to  be  the  teaching 
of  Anglican  theology,  for,  in  answer  to  a  question  as 
to  the  inward  and  spiritual  grace  or  blessing  conveyed 
in  this  sacrament,  the  child  is  instructed  in  the  Church 
Catechism  to  reply,  "  A  death  unto  sin  and  a  new 
birth  unto  righteousness."  But  the  only  thing  that 
death  and  birth  may  be  said  to  have  in  common  is  this, 
that  each  marks  a  transition  from  one  stage  or  con- 
dition of  existence  to  another.  By  natural  birth  man 
is  brought  into  relations  with  society,  he  becomes  a 
recognized  member  of  the  human  race.  Similarly  by 
the  new  birth  of  Baptism  he  is  brought  into  relations 
with  all  the  baptized,  and  from  having  been  simply  a 
member  of  the  race  becomes  also  a  member  of  the 
society  of  Christ.  So  again  with  death  ;  that  also  as, 
Christians  believe,  is  an  event  as  contrasted  with  a 
condition ;  it  is  not  an  eternal  sleep,  it  is  the  gateway 
from  an  old  and  inferior  sort  of  life  to  a  new  and 
different  one.  In  so  far  then  as  the  grace  of  Baptism 
can  properly  be  spoken  of  as  a  "  death,"  we  must  be 
meant   to   understand    that   by  it  as  by  a  door  we 


152  THE   PEACE   OF   THE   CHURCH. 

pass  from  the  worse  environment  to  the  better,  from 
a  state  of  existence  clouded  and  clogged  by  "sin" 
into  a  state  of  existence  made  luminous  and  free  by 
"  rio-hteousness."  All  this  of  course  is  uttered  in  the 
high  and  rarefied  atmosphere  of  idealism.  As  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  we  do  not  always  discern  this  edifying  con- 
trast between  the  lives  of  the  baptized  and  the  lives  of 
the  unbaptized,  —  would  that  we  did !  I  am  speak- 
ing of  the  theory  of  the  thing.  Possibly  if  we  were  to 
institute  a  like  comparison  between  the  theory  of  the 
State  and  the  practice  of  the  State,  we  should  find 
an  even  more  portentous  gulf  sundering  things  as 
they  are  from  things  as  they  ought  to  be.  And  yet 
both  State  and  Church,  be  it  never  forgotten,  are  of 
God.  We  must  not  let  ourselves  despair  of  either 
of  them.  Of  the  whole  body  of  the  baptized  we  cer- 
tainly may  say  with  truthfulness,  that  as  contrasted 
with  the  whole  body  of  the  unbaptized,  it  gives  evidence 
of  spiritual  superiority.  Armies  have  their  poltroons 
and  families  their  black  sheep ;  but  we  do  not  for 
that  reason  condemn  the  institute  of  family  life  as  a 
failure,  or  say  of  the  army  that  as  an  instrument  of 
conquest  it  is  useless.  " The  like  figure  thereunto,  even 
Baptism,  doth  also  now  save"  society, for  by  it  we  are 
born  children  into  the  family  of  God,  and  by  it  we  are 
enrolled  soldiers  in  the  army  of  his  Christ. 

I  spoke  of  the  symbolism  of  the  second  of  the  two 
sacraments  as  being  more  complicated,  and  for  that 
reason  more  difficult  of  interpretation,  than  the  sym- 
bolism of  the  first.     Baptism,  for  instance,  cannot  be 


THE   SIGNS   AND   SEALS.  163 

said  to  have  any  commemorative  character,  except, 
indeed,  ill  so  far  as  any  usage  whatsoever  may  be  said 
to  commemorate  the  originator  of  it ;  but  in  the  case 
of  Holy  Communion  the  commemorative  feature  is,  as 
we  shall  see,  the  most  prominent ;  I  do  not  say  neces- 
sarily the  most  important,  but  certainly  the  most  pro- 
minent of  all.  Baptism,  again,  is  representatively 
symbolic  in  only  two,  or  at  most  three  senses.  Holy 
Communion,  on  the  other  hand,  possesses  a  represen- 
tative symbolism  so  manifold  that  it  is  perhaps  im- 
possible for  any  analysis  to  do  it  complete  justice. 

I  have  always  been  impressed  by  the  suggestiveness 
of  that  sentence  in  the  Communion  Office  of  the  Book 
of  Common  Prayer  in  which  we  pray  God  that,  by 
the  merits  and  death  of  his  Son  Jesus  Christ  and 
through  faith  in  his  blood,  we  and  all  his  whole  Church 
may  obtain  remission  of  our  sins,  and  all  other  benefits 
of  his  passion.  "  All  other  benefits  of  his  passion,"  — 
it  is  as  if  the  soul  of  the  worshipper  despaired  of  ever 
being  able  thoroughly  to  search  into  all  the  wealth  of 
meaning  and  of  blessing  stored  up  in  that  transcend- 
ent sacrifice.  Remission  of  sin,  —  yes,  that  is  one 
thing ;  but  how  much  more,  who  knows  ?  And  so  also 
with  the  sacrament  designed  to  put  that  sacrifice  as 
it  were  before  our  very  eyes  ;  is  it  not  just  what  we 
ought  to  expect  that  the  sign,  like  the  thing  signified, 
should  be,  with  respect  to  its  contents,  unsearchable  ? 

Nevertheless,  even  as  we  may  without  presumption 
or  irreverence  seek  to  look  into  the  meaning  and  pur- 
port of  the  sacrifice  itself,  although  assured  beforehand 


154  THE   PEACE   OF   THE   CHUKCH. 

that  we  can  only  know  in  part,  so  may  we  also  with  a 
certain  holy  fearlessness  essay  to  interpret  the  sym- 
bolism prescribed  by  Christ  himself  as  a  help  to  our 
better  appreciation  of  the  sacrifice. 

I  pause  here  to  observe  that  the  controversy  with 
the  Church  of  Rome  over  the  number  of  the  sacra- 
ments is,  in  great  measure,  a  mere  quibble  of  words. 
Every  theological  student  knows  perfectly  well  that 
other  things  besides  Baptism  and  the  Lord's  Supper 
passed  among  the  primitive  Christians  under  the 
general  name  of  sacrament.  The  Latin  fathers  seem 
to  have  used  the  word  in  the  sense  of  a  sacred  sym- 
bol or  religious  emblem  of  any  sort.  The  School- 
men, with  their  love  of  exact  classification,  gladly 
fastened  the  mystic  number  "  seven  "  upon  the  sacra- 
ments, but  had  five  or  nine  been  needed  by  the 
Church  authorities  of  their  day,  no  doubt  the  meta- 
physics of  Peter  Lombard  and  Saint  Thomas  would 
have  been  equal  to  the  emergency.  Among  the  many 
conceivable  sacraments,  Anglican  religion  recognizes 
but  two  of  which  it  is  willing  to  say  positively,  first, 
that  they  were  "  ordained  "  by  Christ  Himself,  and 
secondly,  that  they  are  "  means  of  grace." 

But  to  come  back  to  our  study  of  the  Holy  Com- 
munion. The  first  and,  as  I  have  said,  the  most 
obvious  of  the  aspects  of  the  eucharistic  symbolism 
is  the  commemorative  one.  The  Book  of  Common 
Prayer,  the  only  authoritative  mouthpiece  of  Angli- 
can religion,  insists  upon  this  with  doubled  and  re- 
doubled emphasis.     "  Why,"  the  child  is  asked  hi  the 


THE   SIGNS   AND   SEALS.  155 

Catechism,  "  was  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Sup- 
per ordained  ? "  The  answer  could  not  easily  be 
more  explicit ;  "  For  the  continual  remembrance  of  the 
sacrifice  of  the  death  of  Christ,  and  of  the  benefits 
which  we  receive  thereby."  In  the  Exhortation  of  the 
Communion  Office  we  have  the  same  point  urged,  for 
we  are  there  told  that  "  to  the  end  that  we  should 
always  remember "  the  exceeding  great  love  of  our 
Master  and  only  Saviour,  he  instituted  and  ordained 
these  holy  mysteries.  So  then,  whatever  other  and 
further  estimates  of  this  sacrament's  significance  we 
may  be  bound  to  form,  it  can  never  be  right  for  us  to 
neglect  or  obscure  the  memorial  signification.  Neither 
are  we  left  in  any  uncertainty  as  to  what  that  is  which 
is  commemorated.  This  frequently  recurring  act  of 
reminder,  this  observance  of  which  it  has  been  pre- 
dicted that  it  shall  endure  so  long  as  man  and  the 
earth  maintain  their  present  relations  to  one  another, 
is,  in  the  language  of  St.  Paul,  a  showing  forth  of  the 
death  of  Christ.  Such  language  suggests,  even  if  it 
does  not  assert,  that  in  that  death  there  had  lain  some 
marvellous  significance,  some  singular  efficacy,  some- 
thing to  justify  the  calling  it,  as  we  do  when  speaking 
devotionally  and  from  the  heart,  a  "  precious  "  death. 
Nothing  is  easier  than  to  explain  away  by  surface 
reasoning  the  mystery  of  the  great  sacrifice.  We  may 
accustom  ourselves  to  speak  of  Christ  on  the  Cross  in 
the  same  tone  and  manner  in  which  we  speak  of  More 
on  the  scaffold  and  Cranmer  at  the  stake  ;  but  after 
we  have,  as  we  fancy,  emptied  the  whole  thing  of  mys- 


156  THE  PEACE  OF  THE   CHUKCII. 

tery,  flooded  the  entire  field  with  the  dry  light  of  the 
reason,  we  look  up  and  there,  to  our  unfeigned  sur- 
prise, stands  the  Cross,  still  as  of  old  riveting  the  gaze 
of  the  whole  human  family,  in  no  slightest  measure 
shaken  or  disturbed,  but  rooted  to  its  ancient  place,  — 
the  same  easily  explainable  thing  which  yet  will  not 
be  explained  it  always  was. 

The  truth  is,  the  essence  of  the  Christian  religion 
lies  in  the  principle  of  sacrifice.  There  is  nothing 
on  earth  so  deep  as  sacrifice,  nothing  in  heaven  so 
high.  It  is  the  secret  of  true  life,  the  witness  of  sin- 
cerity, the  root  and  bond  of  love.  We  are  constantly 
reminded  of  this  in  our  purely  human  relations.  Sac- 
rifice whenever  and  wherever  seen,  if  believed  to  be 
genuine,  draws  admiration.  Look  about  over  the 
circle  of  your  acquaintance.  Which  ai-e  the  lives 
that  challenge  your  reverence,  —  those  in  which  sac- 
rifice is  prominent,  or  those  from  which  it  has  been 
sedulously  banished  ?  It  is  needful  for  man's  spirit- 
ual well-being  that  his  thoughts  should  be  turned 
as  often  as  possible  in  the  direction  of  sacrifice. 
There  is  a  call  for  some  one  perfect  embodiment 
and  illustration  of  the  principle,  and  it  is  found  in 
the  person  of  Him  who  says  in  the  hearing  of  us 
all,  ''  Lo  I  come  to  do  thy  will,  0  God." 

Sacrifice  has  never  been  wholly  absent  from  reli- 
gion. We  trace  the  history  of  it  as  a  formal  rite  from 
the  earliest  times.  The  smoke  of  altars  rises  all  along 
the  line  of  human  history.  A  very  dim  and  confused 
notion  of  the  real  meaning  of  what  they  did,  those 


THE    SIGIxS   AND   SEALS.  157 

primitive  worshippers  may  liavc  had,  yet  must  this 
truth  with  more  or  less  of  distinctness  have  reached 
them,  that  witli  the  giving  up  of  life  in  God's  ser- 
vice there  is  associated  the  winning  back  of  a  better 
life.  The  man  who  came  to  the  altar,  and  left  there 
as  an  offering  to  God  something  that  had  cost  him 
toil  and  effort,  and  went  away  with  a  sense  of  par- 
don and  reconciliation,  was  still  a  long  way  olBf,  we 
must  confess,  from  the  point  reached  by  him  who 
could  say,  "The  sacrifices  of  God  are  a  broken  spirit;" 
but  he  was  on  the  way  to  that  point,  he  was  being 
made  ready  to  receive  that  higher  truth.  In  the 
presence  of  the  cross  of  Christ,  high  and  lifted  up, 
henceforth  to  be  for  ever  recognized  as  the  one  au- 
thentic and  supreme  symbol  of  sacrifice,  those  old 
altar  fires  flicker  and  die.  There  is  no  longer  any 
need  of  them ;  for  now  the  Son  of  God  is  come,  and 
in  place  of  their  dim  adumbrations  has  given  us 
vision  to  discern  that  the  real  sacrifice  is  a  thing 
inward  and  of  the  will,  only  acceptable  when  pat- 
terned after  liis  own.  To  keep  always  vivid  before 
the  eyes  of  the  mind,  and  ever  printed  freshly  on 
the  remembrance,  this  truth  that  God's  best  revela- 
tion of  Himself  to  man  has  been  effected  through 
sacrifice,  this  is  what  we  may  call  the  first  intention  of 
the  sacrament  of  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ.  We 
do  what  we  do  in  perpetual  memory  of  the  arche- 
typal sacrifice.  Had  the  fortunes  of  that  great  ob- 
ject-lesson we  call  the  Cross  been  entrusted  to 
tradition,  the  thing  might  have  been  forgotten,  for 


158  THE   PEACE   OF   THE   CHURCH. 

records  are  perishable,  and  manuscripts  may  suffer 
mutilation;  but  the  consecrated  observance,  the  hal- 
lowed use  lives  on.  Not  only  so,  but  even  had  the 
doctrine  survived,  what  assurance  have  we  that  it 
might  not  have  dropped  out  of  men's  regard,  lost 
its  hold  on  their  affections,  been  distorted,  cast  aside 
as  obsolete,  caricatured  out  of  all  likeness  to  itself  ? 
Such  a  fate  has  befallen  doctrines  not  a  few ;  it  might 
have  befallen  this  one.  But  somehow  as  sacrament 
the  thing  endures,  outrivalling  tradition  in  persist- 
ency, excelling  dogma  in  many-sidedness,  —  a  per- 
petual witness  to  the  love  of  Christ,  an  unfailing 
memorial  of  the  tender  mercy  of  our  God. 

An  ancient  name  for  the  Lord's  Supper  is  the 
Eucharist.  The  word  has  never  fairly  rooted  itself 
in  English  speech,  and  does  not  seem  to  lose  with 
time  much  of  its  foreign  look.  And  yet  it  has  a 
very  simple  and  precious  meaning ;  "  Eucharist "  is 
thanksgiving.  Under  what  title  could  we  better 
describe  the  true  purport  of  a  service  from  first  to 
last  so  eloquent  of  gratitude. 

But  Holy  Communion  has  other  aspects  besides  its 
memorial  and  eucharistic  ones.  It  ministers  to  that 
need  of  the  soul  which  is  best  described  under  the 
similitude  of  hunger  and  thirst.  Faintness  and  ex- 
haustion are  not  confined  to  the  body.  The  real  self, 
of  which  the  body  is  but  the  tent  or  cottage,  that  also 
has  its  seasons  of  weakness  and  insufficiency.  The 
law  of  nourishment  binds  everything  that  lives,  be 
it  plant  or  soul.     To  possess  vitality  means,  so  far 


THE   SIGNS   AND   SEALS.  159 

as  our  human  observation  extends,  to  require  food. 
One  feature,  and  it  was  a  significant  one,  of  the 
ancient  ritual  of  sacrifice  was  the  feast  upon  the 
victim.  On  what  they  slew  they  fed.  They  became, 
as  the  phrase  ran,  "  partakers  with  the  altar."  This 
observance  also  Christ  lifted  up  and  glorified  when, 
in  that  upper  room  where  He  had  gathered  his  dis- 
ciples to  eat  the  Passover  with  Him  before  He  suf- 
fered. He  turned  the  paschal  meal  into  a  parable  of 
the  true  spiritual  nourishment.  "  Take,  eat,"  said 
He,  "this  is  my  body."  "Drink  ye  all  of  this." 
"  This  is  my  blood."  When  we  have  become  familiar 
enough  with  Nature's  processes  to  understand  how 
it  is  that  common  food  is  turned  to  flesh  and  bone, 
and  these  mortal  bodies  of  ours  continually  renewed 
and  built  up  by  nourishment,  it  will  be  time  enough 
to  start  minute  inquiries  as  to  those  more  subtile 
methods  by  which  He  "  in  whom  all  spirits  live " 
repairs  the  waste  and  loss  to  which  the  soul  is  sub- 
ject. Meantime  devout  and  trusting  hearts  will  con- 
tinue to  take  comfort,  as  for  many  generations  they 
have  been  taking  comfort,  in  such  sentences  as  these : 
"  I  am  the  bread  of  life."  "  He  that  cometh  to  Me 
shall  never  hunger,  and  he  that  believeth  on  Me 
shall  never  thirst."  "  I  am  the  living  bread  which 
came  down  from  heaven."  "  If  any  man  eat  of  this 
bread  he  shall  live  for  ever;  and  the  bread  that  I 
will  give  is  my  flesh,  which  I  will  give  for  the  life  of 
the  world."  It  is  not  necessary  that  we  should 
thoroughly  comprehend  the  methods  of  spiritual  nutri- 


160  THE   PEACE   OF   THE   CHURCH. 

tion  whereby  such  promises  as  these  are  made  good ; 
it  is  a  great  happiness  to  believe  that  as  a  matter 
of  fact  they  are  made  good,  and  that  God  does  really 
feed  the  soul.  True,  we  ought  never  to  forget  that 
the  symbolism  is  representative,  lest  we  fall  into  the 
error  of  confusing  the  material  with  the  spiritual, 
so  joining  together  things  which  God  has  put  ever- 
lastingly asunder ;  but  neither  ought  we  to  forget  that 
the  symbolism  is  effectual  as  well.  The  symbolism 
of  parental  love  is  effectual  to  the  conveyance  of 
blessing  though  we  know  not  how.  It  is  said  that 
infants  who  struggle  up  into  childhood  without  any 
fondling  and  caressing,  most  commonly  show  by  un- 
mistakable signs  that  the  loss  of  what  they  ought  to 
have  enjoyed  has  told  upon  their  constitutions.  Bereft 
of  all  the  pledges  of  love,  the  poor  little  things  show 
like  starvelings,  even  though  they  may  have  had  as 
much  material  food  and  drink  as  other  children. 
Disparage  as  vehemently  as  we  may  the  value  of 
outward  and  visible  signs,  here  is  an  instance  in 
which  the  lack  of  them  has  been  well-nigh  fatal  to 
life  itself.  The  truth  is,  there  is  such  a  thing  as 
being  too  much  on  the  alert  against  superstition. 
To  believe  that  when  the  soul  hungers  Christ  can 
feed  it,  that  when  the  soul  thirsts  Christ  can  give 
it  drink,  —  surely  there  is  no  superstition  in  this; 
nor  do  we  superstitiously  regard  the  symbolism  of 
Communion  when  we  take  it  to  be  effectual  through 
the  Spirit  to  this  end.  Christ  is  the  real  minister  of 
the  Sacrament.     It  is  He  Himself  who  gives   Him- 


THE   SIGNS   AXD   SEALS.  161 

self.  The  earthly  priest  hreaks  perishahle  bread ;  it 
is  the  heavenly  Priest  who  says,  "  Eat,  and  thy  soul 
shall  live." 

The  real  danger-line  in  eucharistic  symbolism  ought 
to  be  drawn  at  the  point  when  a  disposition  to  adore 
what  is  on  the  altar  begins  to  betray  itself,  for  here 
we  do  come  in  real  peril  of  idolatry.  With  one  con- 
senting voice,  the  true  prophets  of  God  have  from  the 
beginning  warned  man  against  the  notion  that  God 
can  be  worshipped  under  the  form  of  any  dead  ma- 
terial Avhatever.  The  Roman  doctrine  of  the  Mass 
evades  Isaiah's  invective  only  by  the  forced  conclusion 
that  what  is  on  the  altar  after  consecration  is  not  what 
the  senses  assert  it  to  be,  but  "  the  veritable  body  of 
our  Lord  and  his  veritable  blood,  together  with  his 
soul  and  divinity."  ^  Once  persuaded  that  such  is, 
indeed,  the  fact,  the  worshipper  may  with  an  un- 
troubled conscience  adore  what  is  on  the  altar.  To 
call  such  a  one  an  idolater  is  slander.  He  is  per- 
suaded that  Christ  is  there  upon  that  spot  as  actually 
as  when  his  sacred  feet  touched  the  temple  pavement 
in  Jerusalem ;  and,  what  is  still  more  to  the  point,  he 
is  persuaded  that  nothing  else  is  there.  Why  should 
he  not  bend  all  his  worship  towards  the  divine  person 
so  enthroned  before  his  eyes  ? 

The  case  is  otherwise  when  we  are  invited  to 
worship  Christ  under  the  "form"  or  "veil"  of  elements, 
which  it  is  frankly  acknowledged  are  what  they  look 
to  be,  namely  God's  "  gifts  and  creatures  of  bread  and 

*  Council  of  Trent,  Sess.  xiii.,  ch.  4. 
li 


162  THE  PEACE   OF   THE   CHURCH. 

wine."  The  appeal  to  the  ritual  worship  of  the 
Chosen  People  does  not  help  the  matter.  It  is  true 
that  the  Old  Testament  abounds  in  material  symbolism. 
The  tabernacle  and  the  temple  were  full  of  it.  But 
of  what  were  these  material  emblems  symbolic? — that 
is  the  all-important  point.  Invariably  they  were  sym- 
bolical of  relations  between  persons,  never  of  personal- 
ity itself.  The  ark  of  the  covenant,  the  altar  of  incense, 
the  shew-bread  and  the  lamps  of  fire,  —  these  were 
all  of  them  material  things  made  serviceable  for  the 
instruction  of  the  devout  soul ;  but  not  one  of  them 
conveyed  the  suggestion  of  a  Deity  resident  within  or 
beneath  the  form.  They  were  but  tol^ens  intended  to 
reveal  God's  thought  and  his  intention ;  they  were 
in  no  sense  the  environment  of  his  person.  From 
the  suggestion  that  gold  or  needle-work  could  in  any 
way  become  the  investiture  of  Jehovah,  the  pious 
Israelite  would  have  recoiled  as  if  one  of  Astarte's 
priests  had  touched  him.  In  fact,  it  was  their  stout 
refusal  to  allow  God  to  be  worshipped  by  symbol  that 
gave  the  Israelites  the  lonely  pre-eminence  they 
enjoyed.  They  were  not  more  brave  in  war,  not 
more  skilled  in  the  arts,  not  better  versed  in  philos- 
ophy, than  some  of  the  other  nations  their  contempo- 
raries ;  but  in  their  doctrine  of  God  they  stood  alone. 
The  account  given  of  the  ark  of  the  covenant,  that 
sacred  receptacle  which  in  their  sanctuary  occupied 
the  place  of  honor,  brings  out  this  point  distinctly. 
Other  religions  than  the  Hebrew  made  use  of  arks. 
Sculptured  representations  of  them  may  be  seen  upon 


THE   SIGNS   AND   SEALS.  163 

Egyptian  monuments  to-day.  But  what  held  they? 
An  ibis  possibly,  or  a  handful  of  scarabs,  nothing 
better;  paltry  images  these  of  that  divine  Majesty 
which  neither  the  heaven  nor  the  heaven  of  heavens 
can  contain.  But  listen  to  what  the  chronicler  has 
to  tell  us  of  the  true  ark  of  God.  The  sentence  I 
have  in  mind  occurs  in  that  magnificent  chapter, 
the  finest  perhaps  of  all  the  spectacular  passages 
of  the  Old  Testament,  the  account  of  the  dedica- 
tion of  the  temple.  Of  this  august  scene  the  sacred 
ark,  set  down  in  what  it  was  fondly  hoped  would 
prove  its  final  resting-place,  was  centre.  Stood  there 
or  lay  there  in  it  any  material  token,  sign,  or  emblem 
of  the  adorable  One  ?  No ;  there  was  a  symbol,  but  it 
was  not  that.  The  sacred  thing  there  hidden  was  the 
expression  not  of  the  person,  but  of  the  will  of  the 
Almighty.  "  There  was  nothing  in  the  ark,"  writes 
the  historian  with  lofty  simplicity,  "save  the  two 
tables  of  stone,  which  Moses  put  there  at  Horeb 
when  the  Lord  made  a  covenant  with  the  children  of 
Israel  when  they  came  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt." 

One  chief  provocative  of  the  great  revolt  against 
mediaeval  notions  of  religion  that  passes  under  the 
name  of  the  Reformation,  was  the  desire  on  the  part 
of  the  best  minds  to  escape  from  such  symbolism  as 
was  set  forth  by  pyx  and  gong  and  monstrance,  to  the 
true  and  safe  —  safe,  because  true  —  position,  that 
things  spiritual  can  only  spiritually  be  discerned. 

Two  other  aspects  of  eucharistic  symbolism  remain 
to  be  noted,  namely  the  two  that  are  associated  with 


164  THE  PEACE  OF   THE  CHURCH. 

the  name  "  Communion."  Even  when  the  word  is 
understood  only  of  such  intercourse  as  we  hold  with 
one  another,  we  see  easily  how  poor  and  tasteless  a 
thing  human  life  would  be  without  communion.  The 
greater  part  of  such  enjoyment  as  we  have  grows  out 
of  the  interchange  of  thought  and  feeling  that  goes  on 
between  ourselves  and  those  about  us.  Cut  off  from 
society,  man  sinks  to  something  less  than  man.  This 
is  the  reason  why  people  are  sometimes  found  declar- 
ing that  they  would  rather  be  blind  than  deaf;  a 
contention  that  looks  at  first  sight  insincere.  And 
this  is  the  reason  also  why,  next  to  death,  banishment 
has  always  been  considered  the  capital  punishment ; 
even  as  excommunication  was  ever  reckoned,  in  days 
when  the  Church  dealt  more  freely  in  penalties  than 
she  now  does,  the  extremest  form  of  discipline ;  for 
excommunication  is,  after  its  kind,  a  banishment, 
being  the  shutting  out  of  the  offender  from  the  com- 
munion, that  is  to  say,  the  society  of  his  fellow-believers, 
—  the  declaring  him  an  exile  from  the  commonwealth 
of  God.  We  ought  to  think  of  Christ  as  coming  in 
the  power  of  the  Spirit  to  meet  us  in  this  sacrament, 
as  friend  meets  friend;  not,  indeed,  as  friends  who 
meet  on  equal  terms,  but  in  such  fellowship  as  Lord 
and  liegeman  have.  There  are  those  among  our 
fellow-creatures  of  whom  we  say  that  merely  to  come 
into  their  presence  is  like  receiving  a  benediction. 
We  certainly  cannot  think  less  gratefully  or  less 
reverentially  of  his  approach  and  nearness  whose 
very  raiment's  edge  carried  healing  in  it  for  the  touch 


THE   SIGNS   AND   SEALS.  165 

of  faith.  No  doctrine  of  a  real  presence  is  so  health- 
ful or  so  helpful  as  that  which  seeks  to  draw  us  into 
the  real  presence  of  the  living  Christ.  If  we  go  back 
in  thought  to  the  night  when  the  sacrament  was  insti- 
tuted, and  ask  the  disciples  gathered  about  that  board, 
wherein  their  chief  joy  lies  while  they  look  and  listen, 
there  cannot  be  any  doubt  as  to  how  they  will  reply. 
"  We  are  happy,"  they  will  say  to  us,  "  because  He  is 
near ;  our  comfort  is  in  his  presence,  our  joy  comes 
'from  his  smile,  our  peace  is  in  this  holy  communion 
we  are  having  with  Him."  This  is  what  they  would 
say  to  us ;  and  what  the  real  presence  meant  to  them, 
that  it  may  best  mean  to  us.^  We  have  his  own  war- 
rant for  believing  that  it  is  the  Spirit  which  really 
brings  to  us  the  treasure  of  a  more  abundant  life.  It 
is  the  Spirit  that  quickeneth ;  the  flesh  (even  were 
their  fable  of  transubstantiation  true)  could  profit 
nothing. 

But  besides  this  fellowship  of  the  soul  with  the 
Saviour,  there  lives  in  Holy  Communion  the  further 

1  Compare  the  story  of  the  walk  to  Emmaus,  as  told  by  St. 
Luke.  The  obvious  inference  with  respect  to  the  nature  of  "the 
real  presence  "  drawn  from  the  facts  of  the  Last  Supper  is  some- 
times evaded  by  arguing  that  our  Lord  spoke  in  an  anticipatory 
way,  and  indicated  what  the  elements  were  destined  to  be  after  his 
decease  at  Jerusalem  should  have  been  accomplished.  But  at 
Emmaus  we  see  Him  again  taking  bread,  blessing  and  breaking  it, 
and  giving  to  his  disciples.  When  it  is  written  that  immediately 
"  their  eyes  were  opened  and  they  knew  Him,"  can  it  possibly 
mean  that  they  "  knew  Him  "  as  being  in  any  sense  resident  in 
the  bread  ?  And  this,  be  it  carefully  observed,  happened  after  the 
resurrection. 


166  THE   PEACE   OF   THE   CHURCH. 

thought  of  a  mutual  fellowship  among  those  who 
in  one  another's  presence  take  and  eat.  How  scan- 
tily this  truth  is  realized,  how  feebly  acted  upon  in 
everyday  life,  we  know  to  our  mortification.  And 
yet  even  such  a  meagre  embodiment  of  "the  com- 
munion of  saints"  as  we  do  have  is  better  than 
nothing.  We  live  by  dreaming  of  golden  times  to 
come.  We  are  for  ever  reaching  after  and  hasting 
unto  the  vanishing  horizon  of  our  hopes.  And  of 
nothing  is  this  more  true  than  of  Christ's  doctrine 
of  human  brotherhood.  It  is  spreading,  slowly  but 
surely  spreading  everywhere.  Little  by  little  the 
race  is  opening  its  eyes  to  the  truth  of  the  one 
family.  Purblind  visions  abound ;  men  are  seen  "  as 
trees  walking,"  and  all  that;  but  the  eucharistic 
symbol  of  the  one  loaf  is  making  itself  understood, 
and  onward,  through  dark  and  light,  we  move  steadily 
to  the  end  ordained. 

Do  we  seem  to  have  wandered  a  long  way  from 
Lambeth  and  the  Bishops  ?  It  is  an  imaginary  dis- 
tance. At  no  moment  since  our  first  departure  have 
they  been  beyond  call ;  for  dissent  as  vehemently  as 
you  may  from  all  that  I  have  been  saying  about  the 
significance  of  sacraments,  take  a  view  as  much 
higher  or  a  view  as  much  lower  as  you  choose,  our 
very  differences  will  but  illustrate  the  wisdom  of 
these  peace-makers,  the  Bishops,  who  insist  that  pro- 
vided men  will  only  use  the  sacraments ;  reverently 
careful,  in  the  using,  not  to  omit  the  words  and  ele- 
ments ordained  by  Christ,  they  may,  if  they  will,  go 


THE  SIGNS  AND   SEALS.  167 

on  and  philosophize  about  them  to  their  hearts'  con- 
tent. Not  so  much  by  thoroughly  understanding  the 
sacraments  as  by  gladly  availing  ourselves  of  them 
are  we  helped.  The  truth  is,  the  sacraments  are  in- 
stitutes not  propositions.  They  cannot  be  explained 
in  a  hard  and  fast  way ;  the  manifoldness  of  their 
significance  forbids  it.  It  may  be  possible,  and  at 
times  necessary,  to  say  that  they  are  7iot  this  or  that, 
but  to  declare  in  set  terms  all  that  they  actually  are 
is  far  from  easy.  In  this  respect  they  differ  no  whit 
from  other  great  institutes  of  human  life.  We  speak  of 
"the  press,"  of  "the  ballot,"  of  "the  jury  system;"  but 
who  will  undertake  to  put  into  a  single  affirmative 
sentence  all  that  any  one  of  these  imports  ?  An  insti- 
tute is  like  a  mountain  or  any  other  great  object  in 
Nature,  you  get  the  effect  of  it  in  a  hundred  different 
ways  that  utterly  defy  classification.  I  cannot  say 
in  a  sentence  what  Niagara  does  for  me,  nor  formu- 
late in  set  phrase  the  impression  made  upon  mind, 
heart  and  soul  by  a  first  look  at  the  sea.  Object- 
lessons  differ  in  kind  from  language-lessons,  —  they 
are  more  intricate  ;  they  appeal  to  a  greater  variety  of 
apprehensive  powers  within  us ;  they  do  not  address 
themselves  exclusively  to  the  logical  faculty,  but 
are  on  good  terms  with  the  imagination  also,  and 
take  hold  upon  our  lives,  our  hopes,  our  fears,  in  fact 
all  that  is  within  us.  You  can  dissect  dead  systems 
of  thought,  you  can  run  your  knife  edge  between  the 
two  premises  of  a  syllogism ;  but  a  living  institute 
must  be  studied  in  its  movements  and  its  processes, 


168  THE  PEACE   OF   THE   CHURCH. 

—  at  the  too  eager  touch  of  a  scalpel  the  life  flies,  and 
the  secret  of  which  you  are  in  search  goes  with  it. 
Try,  for  example,  to  analyze  the  process  by  which 
that  holy  institute  the  Christian  home  exerts  its 
influence,  —  it  cannot  be  done.  All  are  agreed  that 
a  good  home  is  an  outward  and  visible  sign  of  an 
inward  and  spiritual  grace,  but  who  will  venture  to 
declare  precisely  how  and  why  it  is  such  ? 

We  have  to  content  ourselves  with  saying  to  those 
who  would  break  down  the  institute,  —  Destroy  it  not, 
for  a  blessing  is  in  it.  But  how  the  blessing  came 
to  be  there,  and  by  what  delicate  processes  of  trans- 
mission it  is  conveyed,  we  cannot  say  in  terms. 

In  a  truly  Catholic  Church  we  shall  have  to  recon- 
cile ourselves  to  a  very  wide  range  of  opinion  with 
respect  to  the  rationale  of  the  sacraments.  We  can- 
not afford  to  purge  out  of  our  fellowship  the  great 
company  of  the  mystics,  those  to  whose  hearts  the 
eucharistic  symbolism  is  as  the  very  love  language 
of  the  soul.  We  may  not  be  able  to  think  about 
Holy  Communion  precisely  as  they  do,  but  that  is 
no  reason  why  we  should  not  partake  of  it  together. 
The  man  born  without  an  ear  for  music  does  him- 
self no  credit,  when  out  of  his  own  ignorance  he  ridi- 
cules the  ecstasies  of  those  who  are  living  in  a  loftier 
world  than  he  knows  anything  about.  Possibly  there 
may  be  similar  differences  of  susceptibility  in  the 
region  of  worship,  and  it  is  at  least  conceivable  that 
to  certain  natures  the  truth  of  God  and  the  love  of 
God   are   brought   home   by   sacramental   symbolism 


THE   SIGNS  AND   SEALS.  1G9 

with  a  power  Avhich,  in  their  case  at  least,  the  sym- 
bolism of  spoken  words  is  unable  to  exert.  On  the 
other  hand,  let  the  mystical  souls  be  themselves 
charitable  towards  the  non-mystical.  Let  them  re- 
member that  to  the  rigid  enforcement  of  a  "sacra- 
mental system,"  so  called,  the  disruption  of  the  former 
Christendom  was  in  great  measure  due.  It  would 
be  undoubtedly  a  hardship  were  poetry  to  be  ruled 
out  of  life ;  but  we  are  not  for  that  reason  to  forget 
that  prose  is  what  makes  the  common  medium  of 
intercourse  between  man  and  man,  and  that  it  would 
be  an  injustice  to  insist  upon  the  exclusive  use  of 
the  more  beautiful,  and,  if  you  will,  more  perfect 
form  of  speech. 

The  Bishops  have  therefore  done  wisely  in  setting 
the  boundary  pillars  of  sacramental  usage  wide  apart. 
On  the  one  hand,  they  make  Baptism  and  the  Lord's 
Supper  an  integral  part  of  the  Church's  life,  guard- 
ing thus  against  the  constant  drift  of  theology  towards 
a  philosophical  idealism ;  while,  on  the  other  hand, 
they  insist  that,  provided  the  words  and  elements 
by  Christ  ordained  be  strictly  held  to,  we  ought  not 
to  let  ourselves  be  set  asunder  either  by  differences 
of  opinion  as  to  the  modus  operandi  of  the  sacra- 
ments, or  by  differences  of  taste  as  to  the  ritual  ad- 
ministration of  them.  Idolatrous  misuse  is  by  the  very 
word  "  sacrament "  ruled  out  on  the  right,  a  pseudo- 
spiritual  disuse  is  ruled  out  on  the  left,  —  another  way 
of  saying  that  we  are  to  use  without  abusing  these 
great  institutes  of   God,  suspicious  alike  of   the  old 


170  THE  PEACE   OF   THE   CHURCH. 

alchemy  by  which  the  mediaeval  theologians  sought 
to  transmute  the  elements  into  something  that  they 
were  not,  and  of  the  new  chemistry  which  by  a 
wholly  different  process  would  vaporize  them  into  a 
metaphor. 


V. 

PILOTAGE. 


It  is  a  just  and  equal  thing  that  every  member  of  society  should  submit 
to  the  laws  and  orders  of  it ;  for  every  man  is  supposed  upon  those  terms 
to  enter  into,  and  to  abide  in  it ;  every  man  is  deemed  to  owe  such  obedi- 
ence, in  answer  to  his  enjoyment  of  privileges,  and  partaking  of  advantages 
thereby.  .  .  . 

The  same  is  also  a  comely  and  amiable  thing,  yielding  much  grace,  pro- 
curing great  honor  to  the  Church,  highly  advancing  and  crediting  religion. 
It  is  a  goodly  sight  to  behold  things  proceeding  orderly ;  to  see  every  per- 
son quietly  resting  in  his  post,  or  moving  evenly  in  his  rank ;  to  observe 
superiors  calmly  leading,  inferiors  gladly  following,  and  equals  lovingly 
accompanying  each  other.     This  is  the  Psalmist's  Ecce  quavi  bonum! 

Isaac  Barrow. 

The  safety  and  preservation  of  the  truth  requires  the  ministerial  office. 
As  the  laws' of  England  would  never  be  preserved  without  lawyers  and 
judges,  by  the  common  people;  so  the  Scriptures  and  the  faith,  sacraments 
and  worship,  could  never  have  been  brought  to  us  as  they  are  without  a 
stated  ministry,  whose  interest,  office,  and  work  it  is  continually  to  use 
them.  —  Richard  Baxter. 


V. 

PILOTAGE. 

Over  and  above  chart,  rudder,  and  compass,  a  ship 
requires  the  sort  of  personal  supervision  we  call 
pilotage.  The  safe  conveyance  of  the  passengers  is 
indeed  the  main  point;  but  to  this  end  officers  and 
a  crew  are  needed.  Hence  the  prominence  given 
in  all  consultations  over  the  well-being  of  the  Church 
to  the  question,  How  shall  the  ship  be  manned  ?  We 
have  already  discussed  the  Scriptures,  the  Creeds,  and 
the  Sacraments,  —  possessions  that  correspond  fairly 
well  to  the  various  helps  to  seamanship  of  which 
I  just  made  mention  ;  it  remains  to  consider  pilotage, 
or,  as  it  is  more  commonly  named,  polity.  Happily 
there  exists  no  difference  of  opinion  as  to  the  actual 
headship ;  we  all  agree  j^that  Christ  is  in  the  ship  ; 
and  where  He  is,  there  controversy  as  to  precedence 
dies.  It  is  a  question  as  to  how  we  may  most  ac- 
ceptably and  most  efficiently  co-operate  with  Him  in 
working  sails  and  oars ;  or,  to  go  further  back,  it  is 
a  question  as  to  whether  He  made  provision,  before 
his  visible  presence  was  withdrawn,  for  the  main- 
tenance of  order  and  method  in  the  execution  of  the 
task  in  hand. 


174  TPIE   PEACE   OF   THE   CHURCH. 

Whether  rightly  or  wrongly,  the  Bishops  at  Lam- 
beth thought  it  plainly  incumbent  on  them  to  put 
into  what  we  may  name  their  invitation  an  utterance 
upon  this  subject.  The  fourth  and  last  of  their  pro- 
posed articles  of  peace  reads  thus :  — 

"  The  Historic  Episcopate,  locally  adapted  in  the 
methods  of  its  administration  to  the  varying  needs 
of  the  nations  and  peoples  called  of  God  into  the 
unity  of  his  ChurchP 

This  opens  the  whole  question  of  the  Christian 
Ministry,  —  its  origin,  its  transmission,  its  proper 
reach  and  scope.  It  is  a  large  subject  to  be  dealt 
with  in  a  single  lecture.  I  have  no  right  to  be  am- 
bitious of  doing  more  than  to  let  fly  a  few  winged 
words  of  suggestion.  Mere  hints  sometimes  prove  as 
efficacious  towards  the  actual  reaching  of  a  result 
as  labored  proofs;  at  any  rate,  they  are  apt  to  be 
more  kindly  received  by  minds  of  the  better  order, 
for  it  is  always  pleasanter  to  be  led  to  a  conclusion 
than  to  be  driven  to  one. 

It  is  deserving  of  remark  as  a  thing  not  a  little 
singular  that  so  few  writers  on  the  subject  of  the 
ministry  should  have  seen  fit,  in  handling  their  ma- 
terial, to  begin  at  the  beginning.  Some  start  from 
things  as  they  are,  and  finding  in  the  Christian  com- 
munity of  to-day  a  great  and  greatly  diversified 
company  of  officials  called  variously  priests,  clergy- 
men, and  ministers,  set  themselves  to  constructing 
some  theory  of  the  facts  that  shall  show  this  to  be 
the  best  of  all  possible  worlds  ecclesiastical.     Others 


PILOTAGE.  175 

go  back  to  that  period  of  Church  history  at  which  the 
ministry  of  the  particular  denomination  to  which  they 
are  personally  attached  came  into  existence,  and  are 
impatient  of  any  doctrine  upon  the  subject  that  would 
suggest  or  involve  the  need  of  earlier  origins.  Still 
others  think,  with  a  late  Bampton  lecturer,  that  if  we 
would  find  the  fountain  of  trustworthy  information 
under  this  head,  what  remains  of  the  literature  of 
the  sub-apostolic  period  is  our  true  resort ;  though  we 
no  sooner  reach  this  ground  than  we  are  met  by 
a  rival  school,  assuring  us  that  we  ought  by  no  means 
to  stop  here,  but  to  push  on  until  we  come  within 
the  actual  circuit  of  New  Testament  times,  and  face 
to  face  with  the  apostolic  men  themselves. 

But  even  this  is  not  to  begin  at  the  beginning. 
I  invite  you  to  a  line  of  search  that  runs  back  not 
only  of  the  second  century,  but  of  the  first.  I  sug- 
gest that  we  look  for  the  initial  impulse  that  finally 
brought  to  pass  what  we  know  as  the  Christian  min- 
istry in  those  words  of  the  great  Householder,  "  I  will 
send  my  Son."  Here  we  have  an  expression  of  pur- 
pose that  antedates  Bethlehem  itself. 

What  I  mean  is  that  Jesus  Christ  is  to  be  accounted 
the  first  Christian  minister,  not  in  rank  only  but  in 
time,  and  that  if  we  would  understand  what  "  the 
ministry  "  is  in  essence  we  must  go  straight  to  Him 
and  study  Him.  Head  of  the  race,  He  was  content 
to  call  Himself  our  *'  minister,"  and  laid  the  foun- 
dation of  the  "  historic  episcopate  "  by  washing  his 
disciples'  feet.    I  am  not  at  all  scandalized  as  some 


176  THE   PEACE  OF   THE   CHURCH. 

seem  to  be  by  the  strong  language  of  the  Ignatian 
Epistles  with  respect  to  the  function  and  dignity 
of  the  Bishop.  Even  if  the  words  should  turn  out 
to  have  been  interpolated,  a  thing  quite  conceiva- 
ble, notwithstanding  the  triumphant  shouts  of  most 
Anglican  reviewers  over  Lightfoot's  finished  work,i 
I  should  still  be  glad  to  accept  them  on  their  own 
merits  as  testifying  to  a  profound  truth.  To  be  sure 
it  startles  one,  for  the  moment,  to  be  told  that  we  ought 
to  think  of  the  Bishop  as  representing  Christ ;  but 
if  I  were  to  change  the  phrase  a  little,  and  declare 
that  no  Bishop  deserved  the  high  title  of  "  Minister  '* 
who  misrepresented  Christ,  it  would  not  seem  an 
over-statement. 

The  Christian  ministry,  —  nay,  I  will  put  it  more 
strongly,  —  the  Christian  religion  rests  on  the  fact 
that  man  is  a  creature  who  stands  in  continual  need 
of  help.  So  plainly  unequal  is  he  to  the  task  of  self- 
maintenance  that  he  would  long  ago  have  perished 
from  the  face  of  the  earth  but  for  aid  rendered  him 
from  without.  I  am  speaking  now  of  man  in  his 
physical  aspect,  and  as  he  finds  himself  besieged  by 
the  forces  of  external  nature.  No  animal  compares 
with  man  as  respects  the  length  of  the  period  of 
infancy.  But  even  after  he  has  been  helped  by 
friendly  hands  over  this  long  pathway  of  approach 

1  Ignatian  Difficulties  and  Historic  Doubts.  A  Letter  to  the 
Very  Reverend  the  Dean  of  Peterborough,  by  Robert  C.  Jenkins, 
M.  A.,  Hon.  Curator  of  the  Library  of  Lambeth  Palace.  London  ; 
David  Nutt,  1890. 


PILOTAGE.  177 

to   maturity,  he  would   still   have  small  chance  for 
survival  in  the  face  of  the  tremendous  odds  against 
him,  were  it  not  for  the  assistance  that  comes  to  him 
through   society.      Single-handed,   man   would   inev- 
itably have    succumbed   long  ago ;   he  has  kept  his 
foothold  by  dint  of  co-operation,  and  co-operation  is 
but  another  name  for  mutual  help.     What  we  know 
as  the  Christian  religion  is  best  apprehended  when 
we  conceive  it  as  a  divine  provision  for  extending 
to  man  in  his  spiritual  relations  a  help  akin  to  that 
which  in  his  temporal  and  wholly  earthly  affairs  he 
so  evidently  needs.     It  is  pre-eminently  a  device  for 
seeking   and  saving  what  if  unsought  and   unsaved 
would  inevitably  perish.     Christ  comes  into  the  world 
as  the   great  Helper.      Quietly,  through  unobserved 
years,  He  makes  himself  useful  with  his  hands ;  then 
He  comes  out  into  the  clear  light  of  public  life  and 
makes  Himself  useful  by  his  words.     '^  I  am  among 
you  as  he  that  serveth,"  is  his  motto  from  first  to  last, 
whether  He  speaks  as  carpenter's  son  or  as  Messiah. 
The  very  word  we  use  to  describe  the  three  years, 
more  or  less,  of  his  observable  life  tells  the  whole 
story  ;  we  name  it  his  "  Ministry."     Christ  then  was 
what  1  have  called  Him,  the  first  of  Christian  minis- 
ters, and  the  key-word  to  the  innermost  significance 
of  his  work  is  helpfulness. 

We  have  next  to  note  the  fact  that  in  actively 
carrying  out  this  ministry  of  helpfulness,  Jesus  Christ 
made  use  not  only  of  words  but  of  persons.  Himself 
the  first  of  helpers.  He  must  needs  have  those  who 

12 


178  THF  PEACE   OF  THE   CHURCH. 

should  help  Him  in  helping.  "  He  appointed  twelve,^' 
writes  one  of  the  evangelists,  "  that  they  might  be 
with  Him,  and  that  He  might  send  them  forth  to 
preach,  and  to  have  authority  to  cast  out  devils  ; " 
"  whom  also,"  adds  another,  "  He  named  Apostles." 
Here,  then,  is  a  leading  fact,  full  of  significance. 
Jesus  Christ  appears  among  men  and  announces  Him- 
self the  founder  of  a  new  social  order,  which  He  names 
the  Kingdom  of  Heaven;  and  one  of  his  very  first 
acts,  as  legislator,  is  to  appoint  a  "ministry."  He 
gathers  about  Himself  a  definite  number  of  men, 
invests  them  with  definite  privileges,  and  charges 
them  with  definite  duties.  We  are  not  to  suppose 
that  these  twelve  men  were  the  only  ones  in  all  Judea 
who  were  willing  to  leave  their  farms  and  nets  and 
shops  in  order  to  be  his  companions.  Neither  are  we 
to  suppose  that  they  were  the  only  ones  among  the 
multitude  of  believers  who  possessed  the  requisite 
qualities  for  missionary  work.  Others  may  have  been 
as  devout,  others  as  true-hearted,  others  as  able ;  but 
He  chose  twelve,  neither  more  nor  less,  and  these 
alone  He  named  Apostles,  that  is  to  say,  messengers. 
It  was  not  left  to  the  chance  impulse,  no,  not  even  to  the 
serious  inward  conviction  of  any  man,  to  commission 
himself  a  messenger:  the  appointment  came  in  the 
first  instance  from  the  Head.  "  These  are  the  men 
whom  I  accredit,"  He  virtually  said.  We  strike  upon 
a  principle  here ;  we  see  that  the  Christian  ministry 
bore  at  the  first  the  character  not  so  much  of  a  task 
assumed,  as  of  a  duty  assigned.     The  Twelve  did  not 


PILOTAGE.  179 

say  to  Jesus ;  "  we  have  chosen  you,  and  we  will  be 
your  ministers ; "  but  Jesus  said  to  the  Twelve, "  I  chose 
you,  and  appointed  you."  So  obvious  a  fact  as  this 
would  scarcely  need  to  be  stated,  save  for  its  bearing 
upon  other  matters  to  which  we  shall  come  by  and  by. 
That  our  Lord  admitted  twelve  men  to  certain  priv- 
ileges, and  laid  upon  them  certain  responsibilities 
which  the  great  body  of  the  believers  did  not  share, 
must  appear  to  everybody  who  accepts  the  Gospels  as 
authentic,  to  be  beyond  controversy. 

But  was  it  Christ's  purpose  that  this  ministry 
should  extend  beyond  the  term  of  his  own  presence 
on  the  earth,  or  was  it  to  lapse  with  his  departure  ? 
Clearly  the  former  of  the  two  intentions  was  his ; 
since  we  find  these  same  men,  after  the  Resurrec- 
tion, re-commissioned  by  the  voice  that  first  appointed 
them  to  go  out  into  the  world  in  all  directions  in  the 
capacity  of  witnesses,  preachers  and  absolvers.  It 
may  be  urged  that  it  was  only  in  their  character  of 
men  who  had  personally  companied  with  Christ,  and 
could  testify  from  memory  to  the  fact  of  his  Resur- 
rection, that  they  were  thus  sent  forth ;  and  that  for 
this  reason  they  could  have  no  successors,  properly 
so-called,  in  the  generation  that  followed  upon  their 
own.  This  objection  certainly  has  weight,  and  does 
avail  to  break  in  some  measure  the  force  of  what 
would  otherwise  be  the  unanswerable  argument  from 
the  case  of  the  election  of  Matthias  to  fill  the  vacant 
place  of  Judas ;  for  we  are  expressly  told  that  the 
election  was  narrowed  to  a  choice  from  amon^}*  those 


180  THE  PEACE  OF   THE   CHURCH. 

who  had  been  personally  known  to  the  Lord  Jesus, 
and  had  been  eye-witnesses  of  his  risen  life.  But 
when  we  pass  to  the  Book  of  Acts,  and  to  the  unques- 
tioned Epistles,  and  find,  as  we  do  find,  an  officered 
body  of  believers  gradually  coming  into  existence 
without  break  of  continuity,  we  can  scarcely  refuse 
to  acknowledge  that,  whether  or  not  the  apostolate 
was  intended  to  last  over  under  that  name,  a  ministry 
that  had  the  countenance  of  the  Apostles,  and,  as  we 
may  say,  held  from  them,  did  as  a  matter  of  fact 
emerge,  and  did  as  a  matter  of  fact  proceed  to  carry 
forward  that  very  work  of  spiritual  helpfulness  which 
the  Twelve  were  originally  appointed  to  discharge.  This 
is  all  I  am  concerned  to  insist  upon  for  the  present. 
We  have  for  starting-ground,  first,  the  fact  that  a 
ministry  was  by  Christ  Himself  established  to  help 
Him  in  the  work  of  helping  others  ;  and,  secondly, 
the  fact  that  a  ministry  answering  to  this  one  in  all 
that  was  most  essential,  enjoyed  general  acceptance  in 
the  very  first  age  of  all,  —  namely,  the  generation 
covered  by  the  New  Testament  writings  themselves. 
Christianity,  that  is  to  say,  set  out  upon  its  course 
equipped  with  a  ministry  as  an  integral  part  of  its 
provision  for  the  saving  of  the  world.  Man  was  to 
be  helped  in  ways  many  and  various  ;  but  notably,  as 
in  the  day  when  Christ  Himself  was  here,  by  chosen 
and  commissioned  men. 

We  have  now  to  look  with  as  close  a  scrutiny  as 
possible  into  the  nature  of  this  ministry  of  help.  The 
thing  has  scope  and  reach,  method  and  manner,  and 


PILOTAGE.  181 

these,  to  be  appreciated,  must  come  under  analysis 
both  quantitative  arid  quaHtative. 

Of  course  that  function  of  the  ministry  which  at 
the  first  found  exercise  in  bearing  testimony  from 
memory  to  the  fact  of  the  Resurrection,  soon  fell  into 
abeyance.  The  body  of  men  for  whom  it  was  possi- 
ble in  that  sense  to  preach  the  Gospel  of  the  Resur- 
rection, died  out.  There  were  none  left  who  could 
say,  "  I  saw  Him,  spoke  with  Him,  was  blessed  by 
Him  after  He  rose  from  the  dead."  This  is  not  to 
affirm  that  the  place  of  the  Resurrection,  in  the  order 
of  Christian  preaching,  has  ceased  to  be  a  foremost 
place.  Never  since  the  beginning  has  there  been  a 
time  when  the  duty  of  preaching  Christ  risen  and 
living  was  more  imperative  upon  his  ministers  than 
to-day.  But  what  I  mean  is  that  in  making  up  our 
estimate  of  characteristics  vital  to  the  very  idea  of 
the  Christian  ministry,  and  of  necessity  lastingly  resi- 
dent in  it,  this  element  of  eye-witness  is  to  be  left  out. 

How  and  wherein  may  one  who  has  never  "  seen 
Christ  after  the  flesh,"  make  full  proof  of  his  minis- 
try, —  fill  out,  that  is  to  say,  the  circle  which  his 
helpfulness  ought  to  cover  ?  In  seeking  an  answer  to 
this  question  we  might,  if  we  chose,  place  our  main 
reliance  on  the  evidence  of  tradition.  What  men 
have  always  thought  about  the  ministry  and  its  work, 
that  it  will  be  safe  for  us  to  think.  There  is  a  good 
deal  to  be  said  for  this  method.  The  great  callings 
of  human  life  do  retain  their  main  characteristics 
through  long  stretches  of  time,  and  in  spite  of  the 


182  THE  PEACE  OF   THE   CHURCH. 

changes  that  pass  upon  the  world.  In  matters  of  detail, 
in  things  accidental  and  incidental,  there  is  altera- 
tion ;  but  not  in  the  proper  work  of  the  calling  itself. 
Battles  are  fought  with  different  weapons,  according 
to  changed  tactics,  cases  are  tried  under  new  codes, 
diseases  are  treated  by  novel  methods ;  but  the  soldier, 
the  lawyer,  the  physician  stand,  in  the  main,  in  the 
same  relation  to  modern  society  in  which  they  stood  to 
ancient.  Their  profiles  are  as  distinctly  outlined  against 
the  background  of  human  life  in  general  as  ever  they 
were.  So  true  is  this  felt  to  be,  that  we  are  not  for  a 
moment  surprised  when  we  find  the  dramatists  of  two 
thousand  years  ago  putting  into  the  mouths  of  their 
soldiers,  lawyers,  and  physicians  just  such  character- 
istic sayings  as  we  are  accustomed  to  hear  from  the 
men  who  follow  these  same  callings  to-day. 

There  is  no  reason  why  we  should  not  look  to  find 
the  like  persistency  of  type  in  connection  with  the 
Christian  ministry ;  in  fact,  we  do  find  it.  Chaucer's 
parish  priest  draws  our  affections  and  holds  our  confi- 
dence as  closely  as  if  no  great  gulf  of  Reformation  lay 
between  him  and  us.  Nay,  St.  Paul  himself,  were  he 
to  come  back  to  us  to-morrow,  and  resume  his  inter- 
rupted work,  would  find  it  in  all  essential  points  just 
what  he  left  it,  notwithstanding  the  changes  that  have 
come  over  the  complexion  of  society  meantime. 

But  this  appeal  to  tradition  would  hardly  be  in 
accord  with  the  canon  we  laid  down  for  ourselves  at 
the  outset,  which  was  to  keep  as  close  as  possible  to 
the   fount   of   ministerial   authority,  —  Jesus    Christ 


PILOTAGE.  183 

Himself.  When  He  used  the  memorable  words,  "  As 
my  Father  hath  sent  Me,  even  so  I  send  you,"  He  gave 
us  the  golden  key  to  the  inner  significance  of  every 
minister's  work,  and  a  standard  by  which  to  measure 
the  completeness  of  it.  For  since  we  know  from  his 
own  lips  his  functions  as  the  eternal  Minister  to  man, 
we  cannot  help  inferring  what  it  must  mean  for 
modern  ministers  properly  to  represent  Him. 

The  Son  of  God  has  given  us  to  understand  that 
He  holds  to  the  human  race  three  distinct  relations, 
which,  taken  together,  make  up  the  whole  of  his 
ministry.  He  is  our  Prophet,  our  Priest,  our  King. 
As  Prophet,  He  unfolds  to  us  the  truth  ;  as  Priest,  in 
our  behalf  He  offers  sacrifice ;  as  King,  He  rules  us. 
All  these  functions  of  His  He  exercises  in  the  world 
spiritual ;  out  of  the  darkness  comes  the  voice  that 
teaches  us ;  against  a  sky  we  cannot  see  rises  the 
smoke  of  incense ;  on  supports  no  mortal  hand  has 
builded  rests  the  throne.  But  these  things  are  not 
unreal  because  invisible.  This  threefold  work  of 
Jesus  Christ  in  men's  behalf  is  as  real  as  real  can 
be,  and  it  is  for  the  purpose  of  making  us  the  more 
sure  of  this  that  the  ministry  stands  ordained.  Those 
who  receive  it  are  charged  as  the  representatives  of 
Christ,  his  disciples,  with  a  work  closely  correspond- 
ing in  this  feature  of  manifoldness  with  his  work. 
The  same  law  of  triplicity  that  makes  such  a  striking 
note  of  his  mission  is  the  note  also  of  his  represent- 
atives' mission.  Answering  to  Christ's  function  of 
prophecy,  stands  the  minister's  function  of  preach- 


184  THE  PEACE   OF  THE   CHURCH. 

ing ;  answering  to  his  priesthood,  is  the  minister's 
leadership  of  worship;  answering  to  his  royalty,  is 
the  minister's  responsibility  for  pastoral  care.  In 
what  respect  has  lapse  of  time,  the  passing  of  many 
generations,  altered  or  abridged  this  classification  of 
ministerial  duty  ?  In  no  respect,  save  only  in  giving 
the  modern  Church  a  deeper  and  richer  conception  of 
what  the  preachership,  the  priesthood,  and  the  pastor- 
ate should  be. 

Take  the  first  of  the  three  departments  of  minis- 
terial duty,  instruction  in  things  spiritual,  is  it  not 
in  its  essence  just  what  it  always  was?  Man  has 
still  to  be  persuaded  to  believe  in  God,  still  to  be 
persuaded  that  this  God  in  whom  he  believes  so 
loved  the  world  as  to  send  into  it  his  Son  to  suffer 
with  and  for  us,  still  to  be  persuaded  that  fellowship 
with  the  Spirit  of  holiness  is  the  only  guarantee  of 
peace  of  mind  in  this  or  in  any  world.  These  per- 
suasions do  not  come  by  nature :  men  are  not  born 
with  these  convictions  rooted  in  their  minds;  they 
have  come,  if  come  they  have,  through  the  aid  of 
others,  who  as  God's  messengers  have  spoken  to 
them,  told  them  the  truth.  If  these  beliefs  were 
really  native  to  the  soul,  we  should  find  them  as- 
serting themselves  everywhere,  without  respect  to 
race  or  climate,  or  the  measure  of  civilization.  They 
would  be  as  rife  in  China  and  Japan  as  in  America 
and  Europe.  In  point  of  fact,  we  know  that  such 
is  not  the  case.  We  know  that  these  beliefs  prevail 
in  lands  where  the  Christian  pulpit  has  been  set  up, 


PILOTAGE.  185 

where  the  voice  of  prophecy  has  made  itself  heard, 
not  elsewhere.  Moreover,  they  are  truths  of  which 
the  human  heart  and  conscience  have  need.  In  that 
sense  it  is  true  that  they  are  native  to  us.  They  are 
recognized,  when  once  fairly  seen,  as  being  the  xcry 
food  we  require  to  keep  our  spirits  from  sinking 
into  death.  But  until  they  have  been  set  before  us 
we  do  not  see  them ;  and  the  setting  them  before  us 
in  such  fashion  that  we  shall  know  them  to  be  what 
they  are  and  value  them  for  what  they  are  worth, 
is  the  preacher's  task.  He  does  but  take  of  the 
things  of  Christ  and  show  them  to  us,  prophet  in 
his  name. 

Some  are  of  opinion  that  this  work  of  preachership 
is  coming  to  an  end.  Partly  because  the  clergy 
have  ceased  to  be  what  they  were  once,  the  only 
educated  class,  and  partly  because  such  wealth  of 
new  knowledge  is  pouring  into  man's  possession 
that  old  faiths  seem  likely  to  be  flooded  and  sub- 
merged, the  pulpit  we  are  assured  is  doomed.  The 
conclusion  is  a  rash  one.  As  for  the  rise  in  the 
general  level  of  intelligence,  so  far  from  being  a 
discouragement  to  the  preacher  it  ought  to  prove  and 
will  prove  his  stimulus  and  spur.  The  preacher 
differs  from  other  teachers,  in  that  his  work  is  not 
merely  to  instruct  but  to  persuade.  The  truth  he 
has  to  convey  requires  a  certain  preparation  of  the 
heart  in  the  receiver,  —  the  feelings  must  be  touched, 
the  conscience  wakened,  the  will  moved,  the  whole 
man  roused  into  activity ;  and  it  is  hard  to  see  how 


186  THE  PEACE   OF  THE  CHURCH. 

any  increment  of  intelligence  can  free  a  community, 
any  more  than  it  frees  an  individual  man,  from  the 
necessity  of  being  brought  under  the  personal  influ- 
ence of  one  who  has  been  himself  persuaded,  if  per- 
suasion is  to  be  made  effectual.  The  teacher's  chair 
can  never  take  the  place  of  the  preacher's  pulpit. 
How  was  it  at  the  beginning?  Andrew  persuaded 
finds  his  own  brother  Simon,  and  persuades  him. 
Philip  persuaded  finds  Nathaniel,  and  persuades  him. 
Here  lies  the  central  power  in  preachership ;  it  is 
persuasion.  How  then  can  any  access  of  intellect- 
uality avail  to  make  persuasion  needless,  or  to  su- 
perannuate the  preacher's  work?  Then  as  to  this 
promised  inflow  of  new  and  unsuspected  truth,  this 
enlarged  knowledge  of  the  universe  and  its  laws, 
why  should  that  unsettle  for  a  moment  the  founda- 
tions of  the  pulpit?  Whatever  goes  to  enrich  the 
common  treasury  of  wisdom  enriches  at  the  same 
time  the  teacher  of  religion.  The  discovery  of  new 
truths  puts  no  strain  upon  the  Creed  of  Christendom ; 
that  Creed  is  not  a  brittle  thing  that  it  should  break. 
What  happens  to  the  Creed  when  larger  knowledge 
comes  to  man,  is  simply  what  happened  to  it  in  your 
mind  and  mine  when  we  passed  from  childhood  into 
maturity,  —  it  takes  on  a  grander  meaning,  is  inter- 
preted by  a  more  worthy  standard,  in  a  word,  is  better 
appreciated  than  before.  Christianity  is  the  religion 
of  light.  It  has  everything  to  hope  and  nothing  to 
fear  from  more  light.  Time  may  irradiate  the  Creed, 
it  never  will  annul  it. 


PILOTAGE.  187 

To  the  prophetic  or  teaching  office  the  minister  as 
reflecting  or  representing  Christ  adds  intercession, 
priesthood.  He  is  the  recognized  leader  of  his  peo- 
ple's worship.  Here  again  we  come  upon  the  ques- 
tion of  transitoriness  or  permanency.  Is  worship  on 
the  decline  ?  Are  men  ceasing  to  care  to  pray  ? 
Has  the  altar  become  a  meaningless  symbol  ?  and 
will  the  voice  of  supplication  presently  be  hushed 
through  all  the  world  ?  Some  are  faint  hearted  enough 
to  think  so.  But  philosophy  and  history,  let  alone 
theology,  ought  to  make  us  ashamed  of  entertaining 
such  a  fear.  Man  is  a  worshipping  creature.  The 
book  of  his  biography  is  full  of  the  proofs  of  this. 
As  well  forbid  the  smoke  to  rise,  as  forbid  the 
heart  to  pray.  The  great  needs  of  the  soul  are  per- 
manent, —  forgiveness,  quietness  of  mind,  courage 
to  bear  the  ills  of  life,  comfort  in  bereavement, 
guidance  amid  the  difficulties  of  the  way,  —  can  we 
imagine  a  state  of  civilization,  no  matter  how  far 
advanced,  in  which  man  will  cease  to  feel  a  hunger- 
ing desire  for  these?  No  student  of  liturgies  can 
fail  to  be  impressed  by  the  marvellous  vitality  of 
certain  ancient  prayers.  Most  of  them  were  origi- 
nally put  into  w^ords  by  men  who  lived  and  died 
more  than  a  thousand  years  ago.  Within  that  period 
many  growths  have  had  time  to  spring  up  and  to  pass 
away,  empires  have  risen,  flourished,  and  decayed,  but 
these  simple  forms  of  supplication  have  not  become 
antiquated ;  no  man  wearies  of  the  Collect  for  Peace, 
and  the  Collect  for  Grace ;  no  one  desires  any  new 


188  THE  PEACE  OF  THE   CHURCH. 

thing  in  their  stead.  They  are  as  fresh  as  they  were 
when  they  fell  from  the  lips  of  the  men  who  made 
them.  The  very  reason  why  they  were  treasured  up, 
accepted  as  the  family  jewels  of  the  household  of  God, 
was  their  indestructibility.  Men  saw  that  they  had 
in  them  that  which  could  not  die,  and  time  has 
justified  the  judgment.  No  doubt  priesthood  like 
prophecy  must  adapt  itself  in  some  measure  to  the 
circumstances  of  season  and  place.  The  temper  of 
one  generation  may  be  more  friendly  or  more  hostile 
than  was  the  temper  of  its  predecessor  to  simplicity 
and  plainness  in  the  forms  of  worship.  One  race 
may  take  more  kindly  than  another  to  ritual  and 
ceremonial.  But  these  considerations  are  foreign  to 
the  main  point,  which  is,  that  the  instinct  of  wor- 
ship, the  disposition  to  look  up,  the  desire  to  plead 
with  the  mysterious  power  that  holds  the  keys  of 
life  and  of  death,  is  in  us  as  a  part  of  ourselves, 
not  to  be  criticised  as  if  it  were  a  passing  fashion, 
not  to  be  ridiculed  out  of  existence  or  bargained 
with  to  come  to  an  end  and  cease.  Priesthood,  then, 
like  prophecy  is  permanent  so  long  as  the  age  en- 
dures. What  shall  happen  to  them  after  that  hid- 
den day  when  "  cometh  the  end  "  none  can  tell ;  but 
while  the  world  continues,  and  seed-time  and  harvest, 
summer  and  winter,  day  and  night,  are  what  they 
are,  the  pulpit  and  the  altar  will  hold  their  places. 

But  what  now  of  the  third  great  office  of  the  one 
Mediator,  the  kingship  ?  Is  there  anything  answer- 
ing to  that  in  the  work  of  the  Christian  ministry  ? 


PILOTAGE.  189 

At  first  we  are  disposed  to  cry,  "  Certainly  there  is 
not,  and  cannot   be.     We  are  the  citizens  of  a  Re- 
public.    There  must  be  no  ingredient  of   royalty  in 
any  ministry  that  attempts  to  minister  to  us."     And 
yet  if  the  main  thought  which  has  underlain  all  that 
I  have  been  saying  be  a  true  thought,  if  the  ministry 
of  man  to  his  fellow-man  be  indeed  meant  to  shadow 
forth  and  represent  the  work  of  Christ  Himself,  it 
must  be  that  there  is  something  in  this  sacred  office 
answering  to  the  kingship  of  the  Lord.     You  will,  I 
am  sure,  acquit  the  suggestion  of  any  taint  of  arrogance 
or  pride  when  I  define  that  answering  something  as 
being,  what  it  is,  the  minister's  pastoral  duty.     It  is 
hard  to  associate  absolutism,  or  any  of  the  offensive 
features  of  royalty,  with  so  simple,  so  inoffensive  a 
symbol  as  the  shepherd's  crook.     And  yet  the  best 
and  purest  tradition  of  royalty  after  all  is  that  which 
identifies   the  sceptre  with  the   pastoral   staff.     The 
Homeric   monarch   is   the   shepherd    of    the   people. 
No  fault  can  be  found  with  a  kingship  which  glories 
in  making  itself  useful.     What  more    Christlike  in 
the  line  of  conduct  has  been  seen  in  these  times  than 
the  spectacle  of   the  man  whose  style  declares   him 
"  by  the  grace  of  God  and  by  the  will  of  the  people, 
King  of  Italy,"  going  deliberately  into  the  city  of  the 
plague,  determined  there  to  remain  allaying  panic  by 
his   presence  until   the   pestilence  should   be  stayed. 
The  sceptre  of  such  a  monarch  is  transfigured  into 
the  pastoral  staff,  and  men  see  in  him  a  fulfilment 
of  the  gracious  words,  "  the  good   Shepherd   giveth 


190  THE   PEACE  OF   THE   CHURCH. 

his  life  for  the  sheep."  Will  any  one  care  to  deny 
to  the  minister  of  Christ  this  royal  prerogative  of 
service  ? 

Our  own  times  have  witnessed  very  considerable 
modifications  in  the  department  of  pastoral  care, — 
in  large  cities  especially  the  change  has  been  most 
noticeable.  There  is  about  it  vastly  more  of  what 
must  be  called,  though  with  no  disparaging  intent, 
machinery.  We  classify  and  specialize  in  the  work 
of  doing  good  to  a  degree  never  known  before,  and 
what  used  to  be  regarded  as  the  simple  task  of 
caring  for  the  flock  has  become  so  complicated  a 
thing,  that  administrative  gifts  and  executive  ability 
have  acquired  a  market  value,  and  are  accounted 
almost  as  essential  in  the  Christian  minister  as  good- 
ness of  heart.  And  yet,  after  all,  it  is  goodness  of 
heart  that  must  lie  behind  all  the  activity  and  ani- 
mate all  the  mechanism,  or  presently  we  find  the  rat- 
tle of  the  wheels  and  shafts  drowning  the  music  of  our 
worship.  As  with  the  prophetic  and  the  priestly  sides 
of  the  minister's  work,  so  with  the  pastoral  side ;  the 
pith,  the  heart  of  the  thing  has  been  the  same  from 
the  beginning,  in  spite  of  shifting  forms  and  chan- 
ging methods  and  new  names.  The  essence  of  pas- 
toral duty  is  sympathy  ;  in  the  eye  of  the  true 
shepherd  his  own  flock  is  always  his  "beautiful 
flock."  To  care  for  the  needy  in  his  distress,  to 
comfort  the  sorrowful,  to  cheer  the  desponding  heart, 
to  win  back  the  wandering,  to  seek  the  lost,  and  to 
do  this  for  the  love  of  it,  —  such  is  true  pastoral  sue- 


PILOTAGE.  191 

cess,  such  the  kind  of  service  that  best  reflects  the 
royalty  of  Christ. 

The  question  next  presents  itself,  —  and  a  deeply 
interesting  question  it  is,  —  Did  Christ  intend  this 
Ministry  of  his  to  abide  in  the  world  as  an  institute 
or  as  a  succession ;  which  ?  By  an  institute  I  mean 
a  form  or  mode  of  life  which  has  permanency  for  one 
of  its  main  characteristics,  but  which  is  not  so  ab- 
solutely dependent  upon  a  continuous  existence  that 
it  can  by  no  means  be  reproduced  or  reconstructed 
if  once  broken  up.  Take  monarchy,  than  which 
there  could  not  be  a  better  illustration  of  my  thought. 
We  speak  of  the  institute  of  monarchy,  meaning  by 
the  phrase  that  method  of  civil  government  which 
accords  supreme  authority  to  one  person  who  is 
theoretically  irremovable.  It  is  of  the  utmost  im- 
portance to  the  prestige  of  monarchy  that  there 
should  be  associated  with  it  the  legend  of  a  long  past 
during  which  power  has  been  handed  on  from  ruler 
to  ruler  without  break.  Legitimacy  is  another  thought 
that  consorts  easily  and  pleasantly  with  monarchy. 
Kings  have  always  felt  themselves  strengthened,  and, 
in  point  of  fact,  have  been  greatly  reinforced  by  the 
prevalence  of  a  popular  belief  in  their  divine  right  to 
rule.  As  the  anointed  of  the  Lord,  a  king  may  do 
and  dare  many  things  which  subjects  sceptical  of 
his  being  such,  would  not  tolerate.  And  yet  mon- 
archy pure  and  simple,  monarchy  the  institute,  is 
really  independent  of  both  of  these  adjuncts  of  an- 
tiquity  and   legitimacy  ;   it  can  be  established  where 


192  THE   PEACE   OF   THE   CHURCH. 

it  has  never  existed,  and  it  can  be  restored  in  lands 
where  after  having  once  flourished  it  was  overthrown 
and  put  away.  We  speak  of  the  English  monarchy 
as  having  lasted  a  thousand  years ;  but  this  does  not 
mean  that  during  that  long  period  there  has  been 
a  continuous  and  unbroken  line  of  kings  and  queens 
whose  titles  to  the  crown  were  flawless.  It  is  the 
institute  of  monarchy  that  has  endured ;  the  princi- 
ple of  legitimacy  has  suffered  violence  more  than 
once.  Again,  we  have  distinctions  between  different 
kinds  of  monarchy :  there  is  absolute  monarchy,  lim- 
ited monarchy,  hereditary  monarchy,  elective  mon- 
archy ;  —  these  are  all  of  them  varieties  of  the  one 
institute,  the  only  essential  requirement  of  which  is 
that  the  social  system  shall  be  pyramidal,  with  one 
man  at  the  top. 

Very  unlike  what  I  have  called  the  institute  is 
the  body  known  in  law  as  the  close  corporation. 
Here  the  element  of  succession  is  paramount.  A 
close  corporation  is  made  up  of  members  empow- 
ered to  fill  the  vacancies  in  their  own  number  as  they 
arise,  and  who  are  thus  enabled  to  secure  for  the  or- 
ganism of  which  they  are  parts,  a  kind  of  earthly 
immortality.  But  if,  by  any  chance,  death  does  be- 
fall the  corporation,  there  is  then  an  utter  end.  The 
institute,  as  we  saw,  may  be  revived,  restored,  re- 
established; but  the  close  corporation  once  dead  is 
dead  for  ever.  This  is  the  penalty  it  pays  for  resem- 
bling so  nearly  as  it  does,  in  assimilative  and  repara- 
tive power,  the  human  body,  and  for  enjoying  a  sort 


PILOTAGE.  193 

of  personal  identity  to  which  the  institute  lays  no 
claim.  Under  one  or  other  of  these  two  heads,  most 
of  the  existing  opinions  about  the  nature  of  the  min- 
istry may  be  marshalled.  Men  incline  to  think  of 
the  thing  either  as  admitting  of  revival  and  recon- 
struction when  occasion  calls,  or  else  as  a  succession 
to  which  the  characteristic  of  unbroken  continuity 
is  all  essential.  Which  of  the  two  theories  is  right, 
and  which  is  wrong  ?  With  some  diffidence  I  ven- 
ture to  suggest  that  neither  view  is  defensible  unless 
account  be  also  taken  of  the  other.  Before  hastily 
stigmatizing  this  line  of  remark  as  unworthy,  it  may 
be  well  to  consider  what  there  is  to  be  said  in  behalf 
of  each  of  the  two  sides.  It  will  facilitate  the  discus- 
sion to  call  the  one  conception  of  the  nature  of  the 
ministry  the  institutional,  and  the  other  the  succes- 
sional  idea. 

In  favor  of  the  institutional  idea  may  be  pleaded, 
first  of  all,  the  analogy  of  civil  government,  which  is 
itself  plainly  an  institute  rather  than  a  succession. 
The  notion  of  a  "  social  contract,"  as  an  historical 
event  of  the  remote  past,  in  virtue  of  which  man 
came  under  government,  has  indeed  been  laughed 
out  of  court ;  but  that  it  is  possible  for  men  to  band 
together,  originate  courts  of  justice,  choose  rulers, 
and  set  up  a  state  wholly  out  of  continuity  with  any 
previously  existing  authority,  is  too  plain  to  need 
demonstration.  What  is  known  in  diplomacy  as  the 
recognition  of  a  new  sovereignty  —  an  act  of  frequent 
occurrence  —  is  evidence  in  point.     But  if  the  civil 

13 


194  THE  PEACE   OF   THE   CHURCH. 

society  may,  under  the  stress  of  necessity,  or  of  what 
looks  like  necessity,  make  to  itself  rulers  and  guides 
who  stand  in  no  direct  successional  relation  to  any 
antecedent  authorities,  why  may  not  the  spiritual 
society  do  the  same?  If  a  company  of  explorers, 
adventurers,  if  you  will,  have  the  right,  in  entering 
upon  possession  of  some  newly  discovered  and  wholly 
unoccupied  territory  in  Central  Africa,  to  set  up  a 
civil  order  in  virtue  of  their  manhood,  and  of  the 
social  bond  that  necessarily  exists  where  two  or  three 
are  gathered  together,  why  may  they  not  also  set  up  a 
holy  order,  and  call  upon  it  to  minister  the  word  and 
sacraments  ?  "  Authority  "  is  a  subtle  word  not  easy 
to  define  ;  but  whatever  it  may  mean,  it  is  difficult  to 
see  how  anybody  who  believes  both  Church  and  State 
to  have  come  from  God  can  deny  under  the  one  form 
of  social  order  what  he  concedes  under  the  other ;  can 
admit,  that  is  to  say,  the  possible  origination  of  a  king, 
while  refusing  to  admit  the  possible  origination  of  a 
priest.  Not  to  revive  the  somewhat  stale  illustration 
of  the  desert  island  and  the  Bible  washed  ashore,  let 
us  suppose  every  minister  of  the  Christian  religion,  of 
whatever  name,  the  world  over,  were  to  be  struck  dead 
to-night,  would  not  the  spiritual  society,  in  virtue  of 
the  powers  lodged  in  it  by  the  Head,  be  able  to 
reproduce  the  institute  of  the  Ministry?  Hooker, 
than  whom  the  science  of  Pohty  owns  no  greater 
master,  evidently  was  of  opinion  that  this  question 
should  be  answered  in  the  affirmative.  •  This  is  what 
he  says :  — 


PILOTAGE.  195 

"  Another  extraordinary  kind  of  vocation  is,  when  the 
exigence  of  necessity  doth  constrain  to  leave  the  usual 
ways  of  the  Church,  which  otherwise  we  would  willingly 
keep  ;  where  the  Church  must  needs  have  some  ordained 
and  neither  hath  nor  can  have  possibly  a  bishop  to  or- 
dain ;  in  case  of  such  necessit}^,  the  ordinary  institution 
of  God  hath  given  oftentimes,  and  may  give,  place.  And 
therefore  we  are  not  simply  without  exception  to  urge  a 
lineal  descent  of  power  from  the  Apostles  by  continued 
succession  of  bishops  in  every  effectual  ordination."  ^ 

Again,  there  is  the  very  powerful  argument  deriva- 
ble from  observation  of  results.  If  a  piece  of  steel  is 
shown  me,  I  do  not  deny  it  to  be  steel  merely  because 
1  happen  to  know  that  it  was  made  by  the  Bessemer 
process.  That  process  was  for  some  time  looked  at 
suspiciously  as  an  innovation  ;  but  it  held  its  ground, 
and  secured  establishment  and  recognition,  and  for 
the  sufficient  reason  that  the  steel  made  in  accordance 
with  its  formula  was  found  to  be  good  steel.  It  is  not 
to  be  wondered  at  that  men  should  reason  after  a  like 
fashion  with  respect  to  the  ministry  and  the  products 
of  the  ministry.  The  proper  product  of  the  minis- 
try is  character.  Bishops,  priests,  and  deacons  exist 
primarily  in  order  that  souls  may  through  their 
instrumentality  be  rounded  into  symmetry,  —  made 
what  God  meant  them  to  be.  Any  ecclesiastical  phi- 
losophizing that  tends  to  blur  this  great  central  fact 
of  all,  is  self-condemned.     The  Church  is  God's  device 

1  Eccles.  Polity,  Book  VII.  xiv.  [11  j. 


196  THE   PEACE   OF   THE   CHURCH. 

for  bringing  spiritual  fruit  to  perfection.  If  ever  the 
under-gardeners  forget  this,  and  from  fear  of  "  the 
wild  boar  out  of  the  wood  "  turn  all  their  attention 
to  keeping  the  hedges  in  repair,  the  purpose  of  the 
Householder  is  thwarted. 

When,  therefore,  we  see,  as  we  cannot  help  seeing 
unless  our  eyes  are  wilfully  and  persistently  shut, 
that  unique  product  known  as  Christian  character 
abundantly  developed  under  a  ministry  of  the  word 
and  sacraments  that  does  not  claim  for  itself  succes- 
sional  validity,  we  are  moved  to  cry.  What  does  it 
matter  whether  Holy  Orders  have  the  sort  of  legiti- 
macy conferred  by  unbroken  continuity  of  transmis- 
sion or  not? — here  is  the  thing  itself  to  produce  which 
Holy  Orders  were  originally  designed ;  let  us  reason 
back  from  the  fruit  to  the  tree,  from  the  cluster  to  the 
vine ;  if  the  thing  borne  is  good,  it  must  be  that  the 
stock  from  which  it  sprang  is  healthy.  Moreover,  this 
position  appears  to  be  strongly  buttressed  by  a  most 
suggestive  precedent  in  Christ's  own  ministry.  I 
mean,  of  course,  the  case  of  the  man  whom  even  the 
beloved  Apostle  desired  to  see  formally  condemned, 
because,  while  following  not  with  the  Twelve,  he  yet 
ventured  upon  casting  out  devils  in  the  holy  Name. 
The  parallelism  here  would  seem  to  be  perfect ;  and 
is,  in  fact,  so  singularly  striking,  that  for  those  who 
believe  the  Gospels  to  have  been  written  for  our  learn- 
ing, it  must  be  hard  not  to  see  in  it  an  intended  lesson 
for  us  of  these  denominational  days.  The  man  was 
in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  word  a  volunteer.     He 


PILOTAGE.  107 

had  received  no  commission,  not  even  the  most  in- 
formal one.  But  he  had,  so  to  say,  all  alone  by  him- 
self, fallen  in  love  with  Jesus  Christ ;  and  finding- 
himself,  like  Stephen,  full  of  faith  and  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  had  assumed  to  exercise  that  primary  function 
of  the  ministry  of  help,  —  the  driving  out  of  those 
evil  tenants  that  bar  the  gate  of  the  soul  against  God's 
entrance. 

Very  possibly  some  of  the  Apostles,  with  the  story 
of  Dathan  and  Abiram  fresh  in  mind,  had  looked  to 
see  the  earth  open  and  swallow  him  up ;  failing  this, 
the  least  they  could  expect  was  that  his  mouth  should 
be  officially  shut,  and  his  exorcisms  declared  invalid. 
But  no,  nothing  of  the  sort  ensued ;  Christ  was  con- 
tent simply  to  utter  that  weighty  sentence,  which 
ought  to  be  named  the  golden  rule  of  ecclesiastical 
polity,  —  "Forbid  him  not,  for  there  is  no  man  which 
shall  do  a  miracle  in  my  name  that  can  lightly  speak 
evil  of  me.  For  he  that  is  not  against  us  is  on  our 
part."  It  is  true  that  we  have  in  another  connec- 
tion the  contrasted  saying,  "  He  that  is  not  for  me 
is  against  me ; "  but  there  is  no  real  conflict  of  pur 
port  in  the  two  dicta.  In  declaring  that  whoever 
is  not  for  Him  is  against  Him,  Christ  speaks  in  the 
singular  number,  and  what  He  has  in  mind  is  the 
necessity  of  whole-heartedness  in  religion.  Personal 
loyalty,  He  is  reminding  us,  admits  of  no  compro- 
mises. "No  man  can  serve  two  masters"  is  his  other 
way  of  putting  the  same  thought.  But  in  his  com- 
ment  on   the   doings  of   the   self-appointed  minister 


198  THE  PEACE  OF  THE  CHURCH. 

whom  the  duly  authorized  Apostles  desired  to  see  put 
out  of  countenance,  our  Lord  uses  not  the  singular 
but  the  plural.  The  word  is  not  ''  me  "  but  "  us," 
and  for  the  simple  reason  that  in  this  case  the  ques- 
tion of  personal  allegiance  is  not  raised  at  all.  It  is 
not  so  much  as  alleged  that  the  man  is  casting  out 
devils  boastfully  in  his  own  name ;  he  is  confessedly 
doing  it  in  Christ's  name.  But  if  so  he  must  be 
personally  on  Christ's  side,  and  wholly  on  Christ's 
side.  He  would  be  powerless  to  cast  out  devils  if  he 
were  not.  The  only  trouble  with  him  is  that  he  has 
failed  to  discern,  and  to  identify  himself  with,  the 
true  "  stream  of  tendency."  And  yet,  in  spite  of  this, 
wliat  he  does  is  not  thrown  away ;  the  little  tribu- 
tary rills  that  flow  with  but  slight  momentum  into 
the  river  as  it  moves  strongly  on,  may  not  seem  to 
add  very  much  eitlier  to  the  volume  or  to  the  swift- 
ness of  the  current ;  but  in  so  far  as  they  are  "  not 
against"  it,  they  may  fairly  enough  be  said  to  be 
"  for "  it.  The  river  could  flow  without  any  partic- 
ular one  of  them;  but  they  all  help.  Not  to  any 
voluntary  association  for  the  promotion  of  Christian- 
ity  does  the  promise  run  that  the  gates  of  hell  shall 
not  prevail  against  it,  and  yet  there  is  nothing  to 
forbid  that  the  rivers  of  the  flood  thereof  should 
make  glad  the  city  of  God.  Surely  this  is  a  better 
way  of  estimating  modern  denominationalism  in  its 
relation  to  Christendom  as  a  whole,  than  to  go  rum- 
maging about  among  the  early  centuries,  bent  on  dis- 
covering the  particular  heresies  and  sects  to  which 


PILOTAGE.  199 

present-dav  forms  of  Christianity  may  with  most  of 
likelihood  be  compared. 

And  this  gives  me  an  easy  point  of  transition  to 
the  other  side  of  the  argument,  for  the  argument,  as 
I  began  by  insisting,  has  its  two  sides.  Although 
Christ  was  full  of  charity  for  the  volunteer  exorcist, 
and  flatly  refused  either  to  censure  or  to  silence  him. 
He  showed  by  the  very  language  He  employed  that 
He  considered  the  advantage  to  lie  with  the  main 
body,  —  with  those  who  were  serving  under  a  system 
of  orderly  appointment.  What  other  meaning  can  we 
attach  to  those  phrases,  "  with  us,"  "  on  our  side  "  ? 
Who  are  included  in  these  plurals  ?  Clearly  and 
beyond  all  question  the  Apostles  themselves.  There 
is  a  side  ;  God's  battle  has  begun  ;  and  the  Leader 
says  to  his  staff.  Don't  quarrel  with  anybody  whom 
you  find  fighting  in  my  name,  even  if  he  be  nothing 
more  than  a  skirmisher ;  he  is  on  our  side. 

Let  us  look  then  at  some  of  the  strong  points  of 
the  successional  idea.  The  great  advantage  of  strict 
notions  with  respect  to  the  orderly  handing  on  of 
authority  is  that  they  make  for  the  interest  of  rever- 
ence and  tranquillity.  Grant  that  there  may  be  times 
when  it  is  needful  to  shock  reverence  and  to  break 
up  tranquillity,  concede  in  other  words  the  abstract 
"  right  of  revolution"  for  cause  ;  nevertheless,  It  will 
hardly  be  disputed  that  alike  in  State  and  Church 
reverence  and  tranquillity  are  desirable  possessions 
where  they  may  be  had.  Hence  even  democracies 
are  careful  not  to  dispense  wholly  with  the  visible 


200  THE  PEACE  OF   THE   CHURCH. 

and  audible  welding  process  whereby  the  incomhig 
administration  is  fastened  to  the  outgoing  one.  No 
appearance  of  absolute  fracture  is  permitted ;  the  gov- 
ernment is,  as  we  say,  handed  on.  This  conserves 
reverence  for  authority,  and  helps  the  maintenance 
of  quietness  ;  for  legitimacy  takes  sanction  from  the 
past,  and  even  Republics  grow  stronger  after  they 
have  had  time  to  age.  The  mere  fact  of  our  know- 
ing that  not  a  civil  government  on  earth  can  boast 
of  having  held  its  authority  in  unbroken  continuity 
from  time  immemorial,  does  not  nullify  this  sort  of 
reverence  in  us.  True,  we  say  to  ourselves,  there  is 
but  one  river  of  authority  that  flows  on  endlessly;  all 
power  is  of  God  ;  but  it  is  well  to  approximate  as 
nearly  as  we  can  to  the  stately  movement  of  that 
eternal  stream.  We  will  not  needlessly  and  wantonly 
break  with  the  past.  Hence  we  have  in  ecclesiastical 
history  the  noteworthy  fact,  that  spiritual  commu- 
nities to  whom  what  I  have  called  the  successional 
idea  is  bitterly  repugnant  because  they  cannot  with- 
out torturing  the  record  reconcile  it  with  their  actual 
beginnings,  are  often  markedly  tenacious  of  whatever 
prestige  may  have  come  to  the  body  denominational 
by  dint  of  long  survival  and  continuance.  They  feel 
that  a  slur  is  cast  upon  their  ministry  if  it  be  ranked 
with  that  of  a  sect  born  yesterday.  But  if  there  be 
nothing  at  all  in  the  successional  idea,  if  the  whole 
notion  of  transmitted  holy  orders  be  delusive,  anti- 
democratic, and  unspiritual,  why  should  there  be, 
under   the   supposed   circumstances,  any  such  pride 


PILOTAGE.  201 

of  place,  any  disposition  to  look  patronizingly  on  tlie 
latest  born  in  the  denominational  family  ?  Ouglit  it 
not  rather,  in  its  role  of  infant  Church,  to  be  wel- 
comed and  to  have  everything  made  pleasant  for  it  ? 
It  would  appear,  therefore,  that  even  those  who  repu- 
diate in  terms  the  successional  principle,  do  tacitly 
attach  a  certain  amount  of  importance  to  it.  They 
are  unwilling  to  base  their  ministry  upon  that  idea ; 
but  neither  do  they  object  to  seeing  that  idea  become 
historically  associated  with  their  ministry.  Other 
things  being  equal,  they  hold  it  desirable  that  author- 
ity should  be  transmitted  in  an  orderly  and  peaceable 
manner,  although  if  it  were  necessary  to  fight  for  the 
institutional  as  against  the  successional  conception  of 
the  nature  of  the  ministry,  fight  they  would. 

Broadly  speaking,  we  may  say  that  one  of  these 
two  ways  of  looking  at  the  thing  is  characteristic  of 
the  Catholic  ;  the  other,  of  the  Protestant  mind.  All 
Romanists,  most  Anglicans,  many  Presbyterians, 
make  much  of  the  successional  aspect  of  the  minis- 
try. With  more  or  less  of  insistence  they  demand  of 
any  one  who  proposes  to  exercise  what  are  commonly 
known  as  sacred  functions,  his  ecclesiastical  creden- 
tials. By  what  authority  doest  thou  these  things? 
they  ask  ;  And  who  gave  thee  this  authority  ?  In 
the  other  Christian  communities  the  full  proof  of  a 
man's  ministry  is  looked  for  in  the  present  rather 
than  in  the  past.  Can  he  and  does  he,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  convert  souls  from  sin  to  righteousness  ?  If  he 
can  and  does,  then  let  there  be  no  minute  investiga- 


202  THE  PEACE   OF  THE   CHURCH. 

tion  into  pedigree,  or  captious  search  for  title ;  but  let 
the  work  authenticate  the  worker. 

In  the  face  of  such  divergencies  as  these,  it  would 
seem  as  if  any  attempt  at  reconciliation  must  bear 
failure  written  upon  its  face.  The  case  looks  still 
more  hopeless  when  we  remind  ourselves  that  these 
contrasted  estimates  of  the  nature  of  the  ministry 
have  their  roots  deep  down  in  that  subsoil  of  human 
nature,  which  the  ploughshare  of  logic  does  not  so 
much  as  touch.  The  causes  that  make  some  rnen 
Nominalists  and  others  Realists  in  philosophy,  the 
causes  that  have  made  your  neighbor  a  conservative 
and  you  a  radical  in  politics,  or  vice  versa,  are  resident 
in  a  region  back  of  consciousness. 

*•  Out  of  darkness  come  the  hands 
That  reach  through  Nature,  moulding  man." 

If  therefore  anybody  imagines  that  it  is  in  the  power 
of  council,  conference,  or  synod  to  put  forth  an  utter- 
ance potent  to  convert  all  the  adherents  of  the  institu- 
tional view  to  the  successional  idea,  or  all  the  adherents 
of  the  successional  view  to  the  institutional  idea,  I  can 
simply  answer  that,  for  myself,  I  am  under  no  sach  hal- 
lucination. I  have  no  faith  in  any  possible  emulsion 
of  oil  and  water ;  and  while  I  admire  the  industry,  I 
have  small  respect  for  the  judgment  of  those  sanguine 
mathematicians,  who  in  their  devotion  to  impossible 
tasks  emulate  Sisyphus  and  his  rolling  stone.  I  am 
contented  to  believe  that  parallel  lines  continued  to 
infinity  can  never  meet,  transcendentalists  to  the  con- 


PILOTAGE.  203 

trary  notwithstanding.  And  yet  ideas  that  cannot  be 
theoretically  reconciled  admit  sometimes  of  practical 
adjustment.  The  solvltur  amhulando  principle  applies 
to  other  problems  than  that  of  motion.  The  differ- 
ences of  opinion  that  divide  men  upon  the  subject  of 
Church  polity  are  really  no  wider  than  those  that 
sunder  them  in  the  region  of  political  philosophy. 
Engage  a  group  of  statesmen  in  a  discussion  of  the 
principles  of  international  law,  provoke  a  club  of 
political  economists  into  a  debate  over  the  definition 
of  wealth,  propound  at  a  social  science  congress  the 
question  of  the  true  nature  of  punishment,  and  straight- 
way almost  as  many  judgments  will  emerge  as  there 
are  brains  working.  Nevertheless,  the  nations  for  the 
most  part  live  together  in  peace  ;  wealth,  whatever 
may  be  the  true  theory  of  it,  is  quietly  amassed  and 
securely  held  ;  and  prison  disciphne  is  maintained. 
It  is  true,  as  I  have  already  admitted,  that  behind  our 
unity  in  these  civil  and  social  matters  there  lies  the 
hidden  arm  of  force,  ready  at  any  moment,  as  repre- 
senting the  convictions  of  the  greater  number,  to  pound 
us  into  unity  if  we  attempt  anything  subversive  of 
the  established  order.  Yet,  surely.  Christians  ought, 
sooner  or  later,  to  learn  under  the  compulsion  of  love 
the  lessons  which  citizens  have  to  be  taught  by  the 
compulsion  of  force. 

At  any  rate  the  men  of  the  Lambeth  Conference  of 
1888  were  sanguine  enough  to  account  such  an  im- 
proved state  of  things  at  least  imaginable,  even  if  not 
imminent  or  probable.     Their  utterance  upon  the  sub- 


204  THE  PEACE  OF   THE   CHURCH. 

ject  of  the  ministry  has  been,  as  was  naturally  to  be  ex- 
pected, more  sharply  criticised  than  any  other  portion 
of  their  platform.  Some  have  seen  in  it  an  offensive 
assertion  of  prerogative  ;  others  have  interpreted  it 
as  an  invitation  to  all  men  to  turn  Anglican  without 
delay ;  still  others  have  been  moved  to  ask.  Who  are 
these  Bishops  that  they  should  venture  thus  to  speak 
before  they  have  been  spoken  to  ?  And  yet  these 
ministers  of  Christ  in  conference  assembled  could 
scarcely  have  used  more  carefully  guarded  language, 
supposing  them  to  have  felt  it  their  duty  to  say  any- 
thing at  all  upon  the  subject.  All  they  did  was  to 
suggest  a  modus  vivendi.  Carefully  avoiding  the  well- 
known  phrase  "  Apostolical  Succession,"  which  would 
have  committed  them  hopelessly  to  a  particular  phi- 
losophy of  the  ministry,  and  made  the  winning  of  those 
who  hold  to  the  institutional  idea  impossible,  they 
fastened  on  certain  words,  the  characteristic  of  which 
is,  that  they  express  a  fact  without  at  all  insisting 
upon  any  theory  of  the  fact.  "  The  Historic  Episco- 
pate," they  said,  "  locally  adapted  in  the  methods  of 
its  administration  to  the  varying  needs  of  the  nations 
and  peoples  called  of  God  into  the  unity  of  his 
Church."  That  government  by  oversight,  which  is 
what  "  episcopacy  "  when  translated  means,  has  been 
historically  the  prevailing  method  of  polity  in  Chris- 
tendom, certainly  from  the  second  century  onwards,  is 
beyond  dispute.  That  associated  with  this  episcopacy 
there  has  been  a  constant  endeavor  (whether  success- 
ful or  no,  I  am  not  now  arguing)  to  maintain  orderly 


PILOTAGE.  205 

succession,  nobody  denies.  To  what  then  does  the 
Bishops'  suggestion  amount  except  to  this,  that  if  we 
are  to  have  organic  unity  at  all,  it  is  more  reasonable 
to  expect  that  it  should  be  brought  about  under  this 
method  of  pilotage  than  under  any  other.  There  would 
seem  to  be  nothing  either  unreasonable  or  arrogant 
in  this.  It  is  a  simple  falling  back  on  fact.  Think 
as  you  please,  the  Bishops  seem  to  say,  about  the 
nature  and  the  sanction  of  the  Christian  ministry. 
All  we  have  to  urge  is  that  if  a  harmonious  and  self- 
consistent  method  of  administering  the  word  and  the 
sacraments  is  the  thing  sought,  the  voice  of  human 
experience  uttering  itself  through  history  suggests 
that  a  system  of  oversight  safe-guarded  by  careful- 
ness in  the  transmission  of  authority  is  the  more 
excellent  way.  Had  the  Bishops  said,  "  Take  our 
word  for  it,  there  has  been  no  break  anywhere  in 
our  dynasty;"  had  they  said,  "Be  ye  sure  of  this,  that 
unless  you  company  with  us  there  is  no  grace  in  you," 
they  would,  indeed,  as  seekers  after  reconciliation,  have 
made  themselves  a  gazing-stock.  But  these  are  the 
things,  be  it  observed,  which  they  did  not  say. 

If  it  be  urged  that  there  is  a  little  interval  of  cloudi- 
ness between  the  New  Testament  days,  when  we  see 
Christ  appointing  Apostles  and  St.  Paul  appointing 
deputies,  and  those  not  much  later  days,  when  by  the 
acknowledgment  of  all  historians  the  system  of  over- 
sight is  found  everywhere  established  throughout 
Christendom,  the  answer  is,  that  however  fatal  this 
circumstance   may  be  to   alleged   demonstrations   of 


206  THE   PEACE   OF   THE   CHURCH. 

"  apostolical  succession,"  it  does  not  lay  so  much  as 
a  feather's  weight  of  opprobrium  upon  the  argument 
for  "  the  historic  episcopate."  As  is  well  known,  the 
authentic  Christian  literature  of  the  times  immedi- 
ately subsequent  to  the  Apostolic  age,  is  not  abundant. 
The  Church  grew  noiselessly. 

"  The  towers  of  IHum  like  a  mist  arose.'* 

The  city  of  God  came  not  with  observation,  and  the 
builders  were  more  careful  to  do  their  work  than  to 
leave  records  of  the  process.  If,  however,  as  soon  as 
we  come  to  the  place  where  hints  and  vestiges  begin 
to  abound,  we  again  find  the  method  of  appointment 
and  commission  as  evidently  the  prevalent  one,  as  we 
saw  it  to  be  in  the  days  on  the  other  side  of  the  cloud, 
certainly  the  presumption,  to  use  no  stronger  word,  is 
in  favor  of  the  belief  that  what  was  historical  before, 
and  has  been  historical  since,  was  also  historical  dur- 
ing that  interval  period  upon  which  doubt  has,  in  post- 
Reformation  times,  been  cast.  And  yet  a  presump- 
tion, strong  as  it  may  be,  cannot  be  made  the  basis  of 
a  proof  ;  and  the  Bishops  did  that  for  which  posterity 
will  thank  them,  when  they  took  the  Historic  Episco- 
pate rather  than  the  Apostolical  Succession  for  the 
key-note  of  their  appeal. 


VI. 

A  CHURCH  BY  LOVE  ESTABLISHED, 


Politics  are  from  God;  not  only  allowing  and  approving  governments, 
but  commanding  them,  for  the  better  manifestation  of  his  own  glory,  and 
men's  greater  good,  temporal  and  spiritual.  Hence  it  is  evident  that 
POLITICS,  both  CIVIL  and  ecclesiastical,  belong  unto  theology,  and 
are  but  a  branch  of  the  same.  — George  Lawson. 

Yes,  by  willing  angels;  by  the  Holy  Ghost;  by  the  inspired  Word;  by 
indestructible  sacraments;  by  many  instruments  and  intermediates;  but 
chiefest  of  all  by  his  own  direct  power  in  men  both  good  and  bad,  in  one 
inspiring  and  in  the  other  restraining,  —  He  triumphantly  defends  the 
Church  and  turns  all  her  defeats  into  victories ;  putting  her  out  among  the 
instabilities  of  the  world  and  the  whirl  of  its  mutations  as  one  thing  that 
cannot  be  shaken;  overthrowing  nations,  but  preserving  her;  rolling  a  tide 
here,  in  which  empires,  races,  tongues,  philosophies,  arts,  landmarks,  codes, 
thrones,  and  every  conceivable  grandeur  and  fancied  immortality  are 
made  to  sink  and  disappear  like  foundered  ships,  while  on  this  same  tide, 
and  over  its  peopled  sepulchres,  He  causes  this  one  indestructible  to  ride. 

N.  J.  Burton. 


VI. 

A  CHURCH  BY  LOVE  ESTABLISHED. 

In  commending  to  English-speaking  Christendom 
a  particular  form  of  governance  and  ministry  as  most 
agreeable  to  past  precedent  taken  in  the  large,  the 
Bishops  at  Lambeth  were  careful  to  speak  guardedly. 
Had  they  supplemented  their  mention  of  the  Historic 
Episcopate  with  nothing  more  gracious  than  Pilate's 
peremptory  "What  I  have  written  I  have  written," 
the  utterance  which  they  intended  as  an  invitation 
would  certainly  have  been  construed  as  a  demand. 
As  men  appreciative  of  contemporary  fact,  while  not 
irreverent  towards  old  tradition,  they  chose  other- 
wise. Cheerfully  tolerant  of  those  lines  of  national 
diversity  which  they  knew  it  to  have  been  the  con- 
stant endeavor  of  the  papal  policy  to  wipe  out,  they 
phrased  their  thought  about  governmental  unity  as 
follows  :  "  The  Historic  Episcopate ^  locally  adapted  in 
the  methods  of  its  administration  to  the  varyiyig  needs 
of  the  nations  and  peoples  called  of  God  irito  the  Unity 
of  his  Church.''^ 

Nothing  could  be  more  evident  than  the  intention 
here  to  distinguish  between  what  is  permanent  and 
what   is   variable   in   connection  with   the   episcopal 

14 


210  THE   PEACE  OF   THE   CHURCH. 

regimen.  We  have  already  studied  the  essentials  of 
episcopacy,  as  such,  and  found  them  to  be  reducible 
under  the  two  heads  of  Christlikeness  as  respects  the 
exercise  of  a  threefold  function,  and  continuity,  pre- 
sumable even  if  not  demonstrable,  as  respects  the 
tenure  and  transfer  of  authority.  These  central  char- 
acteristics admit  of  no  subtraction,  they  are  of  the 
essence  of  the  thing;  but  whatever  is  more  than 
these  may  count  for  surplusage. 

Few  Americans,  for  instance,  a  hundred  years  ago, 
had  any  more  adequate  notion  of  a  bishop's  attributes 
than  was  conveyed  by  the  engraved  portraits  of  emi- 
nent prelates  of  the  Georgian  period  that,  here  or 
there  adorned  the  walls  of  some  colonial  governor  or 
Church-of-England  townsman.  The  prim  episcopal 
wig  and  ample  display  of  lawn  that  made  the  body 
of  the  picture,  together  with  the  mitre  and  pastoral 
staff  skilfully  worked  in  as  marginal  features  of  the 
plate,  were  most  impressive  in  their  way ;  but  the 
savor  was  distinctly  a  savor  of  the  things  seen  and 
temporal.  This  disposition  to  look  askance  at  epis- 
copacy as  being  presumably  first  cousin  to  royalty, 
was,  of  course,  strongest  in  the  States  that  had  been 
originally  founded  in  the  anti-prelatical  interest ;  but 
no  doubt  it  was  well-pronounced  all  along  the  coast. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  the  solicitude  of  the 
new  democracy  was  not  unnatural.  Those  were 
Erastian  days ;  and  the  very  mention  of  episcopacy 
carried  with  it  thoughts  of  lions,  unicorns,  kings, 
lords,  and  commons.     As  well  might  an  ardent  non- 


A  CHURCH    BY  LOVE   ESTABLISHED.        211 

juror  of  Sussex  or  Kent  have  tried  to  persuade  the 
village  squire  at  a  parish  dinner  to  make  two  separ- 
ate toasts  of  Throne  and  Altar,  as  White  or  Seabury 
have  labored  to  convince  the  Americans  of  their  day, 
that  episcopacy  was  not  in  some  sense  an  appanage 
of  the  British  Crown.  How  strongly  this  was  felt  by 
White  himself  is  evident  throughout  his  pamphlet. 
'*  The  Case  of  the  Episcopal  Churches  in  the  United 
States  Considered.''^  In  the  Preface  to  this  brochure 
he  writes:  "A  prejudice  has  prevailed  with  many  that 
the  Episcopal  Churches  cannot  otherwise  exist  than 
under  the  dominion  of  Great  Britain.  A  Church 
Government  that  would  contain  the  constituent  prin- 
ciples would  remove  that  anxiety  which  at  present 
hangs  over  the  Church  of  England,  and  yet  be  inde- 
pendent of  foreign  jurisdiction  and  influence  on  the 
minds  of  many  sincere  persons."  The  very  fact  that 
it  had  been  found  necessary  to  expurgate  the  Prayer- 
book  in  order  to  banish  the  Royal  Family  from  the 
thoughts  of  the  worshipping  congregation,  was  of  it- 
self prima  facie  evidence  that  episcopacy  ought  to 
be  reckoned  as  part  and  parcel  of  the  old  order  of 
things  now  put  away  for  ever.  Moreover,  were  there 
not  here  and  there  in  parishes,  all  the  way  from 
Portsmouth  to  Savannah,  glebes,  parsonages,  Queen 
Anne  Bibles  and  communion  plate,  and  other  visible 
possessions,  the  legal  title  to  which  had,  since  the 
surrender  at  Yorktown,  rested  solely  upon  the  un- 
derstanding that  the  body  claiming  them  as  its  prop- 
erty was  historically  and  actually  the  successor  and 


212  THE   PEACE   OF   THE   CHURCH. 

legatee  of  the  organization  before  known  as  The 
Church  of  England  in  the  Colonies  ?  And  yet,  in 
spite  of  all  the  prejudices,  convictions,  and  associa- 
tions thus  engendered,  no  intelligent  American  to- 
day considers  that  there  is  any  necessary  connection 
between  a  bishop,  a  powdered  peruke,  and  a  seat  in 
the  House  of  Lords.  We  have  learned  something, 
and  are  learning  more.  We  perceive  that  the  dis- 
tinction between  the  transient  and  the  permanent,  so 
valuable  in  our  studies  of  all  things  else,  has  value 
also  in  the  criticism  of  episcopacy.  It  is  evident  that 
the  acceptance  by  a  people  of  this  particular  polity 
does  not  necessarily  involve  a  reception  of  all  the 
concomitants  that  in  the  mind  of  another  people 
may  have  been  wrapped  up  with  it. 

An  interesting  question  now  presents  itself.  In  the 
case  of  the  nation  to  which  we  ourselves  by  birth  or 
by  adoption  belong,  what  are  the  special  "  needs  "  to 
w^hich,  in  the  "methods  of  its  administration"  the 
Historic  Episcopate  might  fairly  be  expected  to 
"adapt"  itself?  Here  is  this  American  people  "called 
of  God  into  the  unity  of  his  Church,"  how  shall  the 
Historic  Episcopate  mould  itself  into  harmony  with 
the  race  instincts  it  here  encounters  ? 

There  is,  of  course,  a  base  and  unworthy  sense  in 
which  this  notion  of  adaptation  may  be  entertained ; 
with  that  we  have  nothing  to  do.  Any  modification 
of  polity  that  should  involve  the  lowering  by  a  hair's 
breadth  of  the  standard  of  holiness  whether  for  priests 
or  people  would  be  fatal.     There  are  American  char- 


A  CHURCH  BY  LOVE  ESTABLISHED.        213 

acteristics  to  which  the  Historic  Episcopate  could 
never  adapt  itself  without  playing  traitor  to  the 
Bishop  of  bishops,  the  Shepherd  of  all  souls. 

But  what  are  the  great  structural  principles  of 
social  life  to  which  this  nation,  as  a  nation,  stands 
committed  ?  What  maxims  with  respect  to  govern- 
ance and  polity  and  organization  have  become  such 
current  coin  among  us  as  to  seem  axiomatic  ?  Ac- 
curately to  distinguish  these  Americana  will  be  to 
take  a  long  step  towards  understanding  what,  in  our 
own  case  at  least,  the  Lambeth  language  means. 

Prominent  among  the  better  characteristics  of  our 
national  mind  stands  reverence  for  what  is  constitu- 
tional, as  contrasted  with  what  is  arbitrary,  in  the 
exercise  of  power.  This  trait  came  to  us  with  our 
English  blood,  having  been  perhaps  intensified  by  a 
century  of  life  under  a  written  constitution.  Not 
that  there  is  any  special  efficacy  in  written  consti- 
tutions which  unwritten  ones  may  not  and  do  not 
share ;  only  it  will  scarcely  be  denied  that  the  em- 
bodiment of  great  constitutional  principles  in  actual 
terms,  known  and  read  of  all  men,  does  tend  to  con- 
centrate, and  by  concentrating  to  intensify,  a  people's 
reverence  for  its  organic  law.  The  document  be- 
comes the  visible  symbol  of  that  peculiar  combination 
of  thoughts  and  feelings  which  gives  a  nation  its 
personal  identity,  and  is  cherished  accordingly.  The 
Count  de  Maistre,  a  profound  thinker  on  this  sub- 
ject, in  his  dislike  for  whatever  he  suspects  of  hav- 
ing been  extemporized,  goes  the  length  of  denying 


2U  THE  PEACE   OF   THE   CHURCH. 

that  there  ever  was  or  can  be  any  such  thing  as  a 
written  constitution  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word.^ 
Had  he  hved  to  see  the  centenary  of  the  Consti- 
tution of  the  United  States,  he  might  possibly  have 
modified  the  harshness  of  his  utterances  upon  this 
point.  He  was  fond  of  buttressing  his  statements 
with  citations  from  Holy  Scripture,  and,  had  he 
looked,  he  might  have  found  a  precedent  for  written 
constitutions  as  far  back  as  the  days  of  the  Judges. 
"  Then  Samuel,"  the  record  runs,  "  told  the  people  the 
manner  of  the  kingdom,  and  wrote  it  in  a  book,  and 
laid  it  up  before  the  Lord."  And  yet,  no  doubt,  the 
material  out  of  which  Samuel  made  his  book  was  con- 
stitutional material ;  there  was  precedent,  more  or  less 
abundant,  for  the  "  manner  of  the  kingdom  ; "  and  De 
Maistre  must  be  allowed  to  be  right,  at  least  so  far 
as  this,  that  when  wise  men  write  constitutions  they 
never  do  it  off-hand  and  de  novo,  but  only  seek  to  put 
into  words  things  already  found  by  experience  to  be 
true. 

The  great  value  of  a  constitution,  whether  writ- 
ten or  only  traditional,  lies  in  its  efficacy  as  a  barrier 
against  despotism.  This  is  what  it  means  for  a  mon- 
archy to  be  "limited ;"  the  thing  that  limits  is  the  con- 
stitution, which  imposes  on  the  kingdom  its  "manner" 
or  fixed  form,  to  wit,  the  boundary  lines  that  may  not 
be  overstepped.  We  are  accustomed  to  speak  of  the 
United  States  as  being  that  phenomenal  thing,  a  na- 

1  Essai  sur  le  Principe  Generateur  des  Constitutions  Politiques, 
§  ix. 


A  CHURCH  BY  LOVE   ESTABLISHED.        215 

tion  "born  in  a  day,"  and  we  pride  ourselves  on  being 
able  to  name  the  day ;  but  this  is  questionable  talk. 
The  blossom  of  the  century  plant,  when  at  last  it 
bursts,  has  all  the  suddenness  of  a  miracle ;  but  only 
the  patient  absorption  of  much  now  forgotten  sunshine 
has  made  the  flowering  possible.  The  Constitution 
of  the  United  States  was  not  created  instantaneously 
out  of  nothing.  Genius  had  much  to  do  with  it,  but 
Divine  Providence  had  more.  Its  very  first  para- 
graph presupposes  a  knowledge  of  antecedent  facts. 
Pentecost  rather  than  the  Fourth  of  July  is  the  day 
that  ought  to  be  honored  as  the  real  birthday  of  what 
we  now  know  as  civil  liberty.  It  was  then,  to  speak 
accurately,  that  Christendom  began  to  be.  For  is 
it  not  clear  that  only  by  such  a  general  diffusion  of 
right-mindedness  as  Christ's  religion  has  brought  to 
pass,  can  government  of  a  people  by  laws  of  its  own 
making,  and  rulers  of  its  own  choosing,  be  possible  ? 
Just  in  proportion  as  God  pours  out  his  spirit  on  all 
flesh,  can  all  flesh  be  trusted  to  walk  alone.  The 
old  attempts  at  free  government  perished,  "  having 
not  the  Spirit."  Even  Samuel's  limited  monarchy 
came  to  naught.  But  for  a  world  baptized  with  the 
Holy  Ghost,  better  things  are  possible.  Government 
of  the  many  by  the  few  is  necessary  when  the  many 
are  in  the  dark,  and  only  the  few  have  light ;  but  when 
the  many  get  the  light,  then  government  by  the  few 
becomes  an  anachronism,  the  hour  for  self-government 
has  struck.  The  de-Christianized  race  or  nation  loses 
this  self-governing  faculty  ;  and  that  is  the  very  peril 


216  THE   PEACE   OF   THE   CHURCH. 

which  is  confronting  us  to-day.  The  human  body,  as 
St.  Paul  so  clearly  discerned,  is  the  only  adequate 
emblem  or  parable  of  the  perfect  social  state,  and 
the  human  body,  as  we  know,  is  governed  in  all  its 
motions  by  a  pervasive  indwelling  spirit.  The  power 
that  opens  or  shuts  the  hand  is  a  power  transmitted 
along  threads  of  communication  which  are  hidden,  and 
it  asserts  itself  from  within.  When  the  crutch  and 
the  splint  are  brought  into  use,  it  is  instantly  per- 
ceived by  observers  that  something  has  gone  w^rong. 
Hurt  of  one  sort  or  another  must  have  befallen  the 
man,  we  say,  or  these  outward  assistances  would  not 
have  been  needed.  The  healthy  body  has  all  the  es- 
sential mechanism  of  motion  within  itself.  This  is 
the  image  of  the  thoroughly  Christianized  community, 
every  member  of  which  speaks  and  acts  as  he  is 
moved  to  do  by  the  spirit  of  God  uttering  itself  in 
and  through  the  conscience.  That  we  are  far  enough 
from  this  ideal  condition,  I  need  not  waste  breath  in 
showing,  but  that  this  is  the  only  working  hypothesis 
upon  which  a  democracy  can  hope  to  enjoy  perma- 
nence is  a  point  which  Christian  teachers  ought  to 
emphasize  more  strenuously  than  they  do. 

Now  the  constitution  of  the  Church  —  1  mean  the  en- 
tire Church,  "Holy  Church  throughout  all  the  world" 
— is  an  unwritten  body  of  practical  maxims  which  have 
accumulated  under  the  teaching  of  the  Spirit.  There 
is,  as  we  know,  electricity  in  action,  and  again  there 
is  electricity  stored,  put  away  in  reserve  for  use  when 
needed ;  there  is  light  in  action,  and  again  there  is 


A  CHURCH   BY   LOVE   ESTABLISHED.         217 

light  garnered  and  laid  up  in  the  veins  of  coal.  So 
with  the  spirit  of  wisdom,  for  the  Spirit  of  God  is 
the  spirit  of  wisdom,  —  this  also  admits  of  accumula- 
tion ;  this  also  may  be  put  away  in  store,  secreted. 
Thus  the  constitution  of  any  given  State  —  and  the 
same  can  be  said  of  the  constitution  of  any  national 
Church — is  simply  so  much  accumulated  wisdom  as  it 
may  have  been  given  to  that  State  or  to  that  Church 
to  discern  and  to  embody.  The  constitution  is  to  the 
government,  whether  civil  or  ecclesiastical,  precisely 
what  the  balance-wheel  is  to  the  watch ;  it  secures 
the  administration  of  affairs  upon  settled  principles, 
rather  than  by  freak  or  whim  or  passing  impulse.  If 
America  and  England  deserve  to  be  called  the  freest 
countries  of  the  earth,  it  is  because  they,  more  con- 
sistently and  more  thoroughly  than  any  of  their  sister 
nations,  have  carried  out  and  embodied  this  concep- 
tion of  what  government  ought  to  be.  This  Anglo- 
American  ideal  stands  forth  the  most  clearly  when  we 
contrast  it  with  absolutism  on  the  one  hand,  and  with 
out-and-out  democracy  on  the  other.  Under  absolu- 
tism, the  ruler  is  supposed  to  hold  a  deposit  of  power 
directly  intrusted  to  him  by  the  Almighty,  and  what 
he  says  is  law ;  under  democracy  pure  and  simple, 
the  voice  of  the  people  is  alleged  to  be  the  only  au- 
thentic voice  of  God,  and  though  it  shout  one  thing 
to-day  and  the  contradictory  of  it  to-morrow,  it  must 
be  accepted  as  God's  voice  all  the  same.  But  under 
a  free  government,  properly  so-called,  the  voice  of  the 
people   is  accepted  as  the  trustworthy  index  of   the 


218  THE  PEACE   OF  THE   CHURCH. 

divine  mind  only  in  so  far  as  it  may  be  found  upon 
examination  to  be  in  harmony  with  the  great  sum 
total  of  accumulated  wisdom  into  possession  of  which 
the  children  of  men  have,  through  the  experience  of 
many  generations,  been  gradually  brought.  This  la- 
boriously earned  increment  of  wisdom  is  what  makes 
a  constitution.  Doubtless,  that  is  the  supremely-fav- 
ored society  in  which  "  the  common  sense  of  most " 
avails  to  hold  in  check  the  inevitable  irrationality  and 
waywardness  of  some  ;  only  in  defining  and  determin- 
ing our  "  most,"  we  must  be  very  careful  not  to  be 
misled  by  merely  temporary  majorities  ascertained  by 
cast  of  ballot,  count  of  heads,  or  show  of  hands,  but 
to  look  rather  to  that  great  multitude  of  the  wise  and 
good  of  all  times,  times  present  and  times  past,  whose 
judgment  on  the  points  at  issue  stands  recorded. 

In  view  of  the  profound  attachment  entertained 
for  these  principles  by  the  American  people,  it  is 
plain  that  no  episcopate  how  historical  soever  will 
be  likely  to  commend  itself  to  them  as  having  been 
locally  adapted  in  the  methods  of  its  administration 
to  their  own  particular  need,  unless  it  be  a  constitu- 
tional episcopate. 

This  is  the  secret  of  the  deep  distrust  entertained 
by  many,  of  the  unitive  schemes  urged  by  the  lov- 
able and  saintly  Muhlenberg  and  his  associates,  in 
the  so-called  "  Memorial  Movement "  of  forty  years 
ago.  The  plan  was  for  the  Bishops  of  the  Protestant 
Episcopal  Church  to  go  forward  on  their  own  re- 
sponsibility, and  quite  independently  of   any  powers 


A  CHURCH   BY  LOVE   ESTABLISHED.        219 

conferred  on  them  in  terms  at  their  consecration, 
to  ordain  ministers  of  the  Gospel  who  should  serve 
wholly  on  the  outside  of  Anglican  lines.  But  it 
was  felt,  and  I  venture  to  think  rightly  felt,  by  the 
greater  number,  that  however  desirable  it  might  be 
for  the  Episcopal  Church  to  come  into  closer  com- 
munication with  those  beyond  its  pale,  it  could  not 
be  right  for  any  Bishop  who  had  taken  upon  his  lips 

the  words,  "  In  the  name  of  God,  Amen,  I,  N , 

do  promise  conformity  and  obedience  to  the  doctrine, 
discipline,  and  worship  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church  in  the  United  States  of  America,"  —  that  it 
could  not  be  right,  I  say,  for  any  Bishop,  so  pledged 
and  sworn,  to  perform  acts  of  which  neither  the  Con- 
stitution nor  the  Ordinal  of  the  Church  whose  Bishop 
he  was,  made  any  mention.  To  the  working  of  a 
constitutional  episcopate  it  is  essential  that  Bishops 
speak  and  act  constitutionally. 

We  shall  return  by  and  by  to  this  question  of 
the  connection  between  constitutional  methods  and 
eirenic  plans ;  but,  meanwhile,  I  note  a  second  gov- 
ernmental principle  as  one  to  which  the  American 
mind  is  indissolubly  wedded,  namely,  legislation  by 
representation  in  contrast  with  legislation  by  edict. 
As  the  constitutional  principle  is  the  guarantee  that 
power,  whether  legislative,  judicial,  or  executive,  shall 
not  be  arbitrarily  employed  regardless  of  the  com- 
mon understanding,  either  tacitly  maintained  or  else 
registered  in  some  great  charter,  so  the  representa- 
tive principle  is  our  guarantee  that  the  current  laws 


220  THE   PEACE  OF   THE   CHURCH. 

of  the  land  shall  be  the  expression  of  the  people's  will 
and  hear  the  stamp  of  their  assent.  Here,  as  before, 
the  Christian  religion  enters  in  as  the  controlling 
factor  in  the  problem.  How  is  it  conceivable  that 
any  people  can  safely  be  entrusted  with  the  making 
of  its  own  laws,  except  it  be  a  people  in  whose  heart 
are  God's  ways?  Just  as  really,  therefore,  may  it 
be  said  of  representative  as  of  constitutional  govern- 
ment, that  without  a  doctrine  of  the  Spirit  it  is  futile. 
At  any  rate,  whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  applica- 
tion of  this  doctrine  to  the  State,  there  ought  to  be 
no  doubt  of  our  duty  to  recognize  its  workings  in  the 
Church.  Certainly  to  the  body  of  believers,  if  not  to 
the  Commonwealth,  the  Pentecostal  promise  runs  that 
the  law  from  having  been  an  imposition  from  with- 
out shall  become  an  utterance  from  within.  It  is  this 
reversal  of  the  point  of  view  that  really  makes  the 
difference  between  the  two  Testaments,  and  it  was 
upon  this  issue  that  Moses,  man  of  God,  went  out  of 
the  world's  premiership,  and  Jesus,  Son  of  God,  came 
in.  This  is  the  democracy  of  the  Magnificat^  and  the 
only  democracy  that  can  stand.  To  this  idea  of  law- 
making by  fairly  elected  representatives,  the  Anglo- 
American  mind  is  knitted  by  tendons  that  bleed  if 
you  cut  them,  and  no  episcopate  that  should  seek  to 
waive  or  to  nullify  this  feature  of  our  social  life  could 
for  a  moment  allege  with  any  show  of  reason  that 
it  had  been  locally  adapted  in  the  methods  of  its  ad- 
ministration to  the  needs  of  the  people  of  the  United 
States. 


A  CHURCH   BY   LOVE   ESTABLISHED.         221 

And  here  I  bid  you  note  the  encouraging  fact,  that 
with  respect  to  the  desirability  of  law-making  by  repre- 
sentation, American  Christendom,  with  the  exception 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  portion  of  it,  is  already  prac- 
tically at  one.  Churches  organized  on  the  principle 
of  independency  cannot  of  course  permit  the  exercise 
of  legislative  power  by  any  body  larger  than  the  local 
congregation ;  though  even  these  have  their  councils 
and  conferences,  membership  of  which  is  conferred  by 
the  representative  method.  But  when  it  comes  to  the 
case  of  those  denominations  that  aim  at  organizing 
themselves  on  national  lines,  it  is  safe  to  say  that 
the  difference  of  principle  involved  in  their  respective 
methods  of  legislation  is  so  slight  as  to  be  inappre- 
ciable. Save  for  a  few  catch- words  of  no  importance 
worth  the  mentioning,  a  man  with  his  eyes  shut  would 
scarcely  know  whether  he  were  in  the  Presbyterian 
General  Assembly,  the  Methodist  General  Conference, 
or  the  Episcopal  General  Convention.  What  does  it 
matter  whether  a  measure  pending  in  a  deliberative 
body  be  called  a  "  canon  "  or  an  "  overture  "  ?  It  is 
substantially  the  same  thing  in  both  cases,  namely, 
an  attempt  to  give  shape  to  w^hat  is  believed  to  be 
the  popular  will,  by  the  representative  method.  It  is 
true  that  in  one  of  the  bodies  1  just  mentioned,  —  the 
Episcopal  General  Convention,  —  the  law-making  has 
to  be  done  by  what  is  known  as  the  concurrent  action 
of  two  houses,  each  of  which  has  a  power  of  veto 
upon  the  decisions  of  the  other ;  but  this,  instead  of 
makin":  it  the  less  American,  only  makes  it  the  more 


222  THE  PEACE   OF   THE   CHURCH. 

SO ;  for  legislation  by  single  chamber  has  never  found 
favor  in  this  country,  but,  on  the  contrar}^,  our  civil 
laws,  both  State  and  Federal,  have  to  run  the  gaunt- 
let of  two  sets  of  critics  before  they  can  be  engrossed. 
For  ecclesiastical  purposes  either  "council"  or  "synod" 
is  a  far  better  word  than  "  convention,"  which  to  the 
American  sense  smacks  of  a  political  flavor ;  and  it  is 
pleasant  to  think  how  entirely  at  home  in  the  popular 
branch  of  the  national  synod  or  council  of  "  The 
United  Church  of  the  United  States  "  we  should  all 
find  ourselves. 

A  third  American  characteristic  is  fondness  for  a 
strong  executive,  when  this  may  be  had  without  any 
sacrifice  of  the  guarantees  of  constitutional  and  legisla- 
tive freedom.  Our  people  almost  worship  efficiency. 
They  like  the  man  who  in  times  of  dimness  and  diffi- 
culty can  say,  I  take  the  responsibility.  In  this  re- 
gard episcopacy  needs  no  adaptation ;  it  is  adapted 
already,  and  it  is  this  very  characteristic  that  to-day 
is  commending  it  to  the  American  mind.  Fatherhood 
and  leadership  make  the  very  essence  of  episcopacy, 
and  in  the  task  of  prosecuting  spiritual  conquests, 
winning  a  people  for  God,  fatherhood  and  leadership 
are  what  are  needed  most.  The  father's  love  and  wis- 
dom, the  leader's  clear-sightedness  and  dash,  —  what 
missionary  qualifications  are  there  that  compare  with 
these  ?  In  fact,  is  it  not  true  that  every  denomination 
of  Christians  has  already,  in  one  shape  or  another,  an 
episcopate  of  its  own  ?  Is  there  one  among  them  all 
that  does  not  look  with  more  or  less  of  deference  to 


A   CHURCH   BY  LOVE   ESTABLISHED.        223 

its  leading  spirits,  its  controlling  minds  ?  So  true  is 
this,  that  the  late  Dean  of  Westminster  with  char- 
acteristic ingenuity  proposed  that  the  argument  for 
episcopacy  should  be  shifted  from  sacerdotal  grounds 
altogether,  and  made  to  rest  on  the  well-established 
sociological  fact  that  power  of  leadership  is  the  in- 
heritance of  only  a  certain  percentage  of  human  kind. 

With  St.  Paul  to  back  me  in  my  choice  of  words, 
I  cannot  think  that  1  shall  seem  to  you  to  be  lower- 
ing the  subject,  if,  while  dwelling  upon  this  phase  of 
it,  I  call  attention  to  the  way  in  which  efficiency  is 
secured  in  handicrafts.  In  the  familiar  titles  "  fore- 
man," "journeyman"  and  "apprentice,"  do  we  not  see 
reflected  Bishop,  Priest,  and  Deacon  ?  And  is  it  not 
true  that  such  a  partitioning  of  functions,  such  a 
distribution  of  effort,  lies  bedded  in  the  very  nature 
of  things,  quite  apart  from  all  question  of  apostolical 
precedent  and  canonical  usage  ?  Contractor,  carpen- 
ter, helper, —  can  you  build  your  house  without  these  ? 
Yes,  perhaps,  after  a  fashion  ;  but  in  house-building 
on  a  large  scale  it  is  wise  to  allow  for  the  employ- 
ment of  all  these.  It  is  a  homely  illustration,  I 
grant  you,  of  the  truth  that  a  three-fold  cord  is  not 
quickly  broken,  but  then  we  must  remember  that  the 
highest  verities  and  the  humblest  often  lie  close  to- 
gether. The  parables  of  our  Lord  are  in  the  same 
condemnation,  if  condemnation  it  be. 

The  Hegelian  philosophy  of  the  Trinity  finds  strength 
in  the  fact  that  it  makes  appeal  to  the  familiar  data  of 
consciousness,  and  it  may  be  that  my  work-a-day  argu- 


224  THE   PEACE   OF   THE   CHURCH. 

ment  for  Bishops,  Priests,  and  Deacons  may  not  prove 
the  less  persuasive  for  having  been  based  upon  the 
experience  of  common  life.  Efficiency  is  intrinsically 
a  homely  theme,  and  must  needs  draw  its  illustra- 
tions from  the  prosaic  side  of  life ;  but  then  we  have 
to  remember  that  Martha's  place  in  the  one  house- 
hold of  God  is  as  real  and  as  necessary  as  Mary's. 
The  ministers  of  Christ  are  servers  always,  and  of 
servers  it  is  required  that  they  be  found  efficient. 

Another  principle  very  precious  to  the  Anglo- 
American  mind  is  that  of  the  maintenance  of  or- 
ganic unity  by  what  is  known  as  the  federal  method, 
—  the  combination,  that  is  to  say,  of  the  two  ideas  of 
sovereignty  and  of  what  has  been  happily  called  "  sub- 
sovereignty  ; "  the  sovereignty  being  resident  in  the 
Union,  and  the  sub-sovereignty  in  the  States.  Here 
again  we  shall  discover  that  episcopacy  suffers  no  vio- 
lence by  adaptation,  but,  on  the  contrary,  lends  itself 
with  cheerful  readiness  to  meet  what  is  required  of  it. 
For,  when  we  think  of  it,  every  rightly-ordered  com- 
munity is  a  union  of  households,  each  of  which  has 
its  head.  Just  as  the  molecule  is  the  unit  of  crystalline 
structure  and  the  cell  the  unit  of  vegetable  structure,  so 
is  the  family  the  unit  of  social  structure.  The  aggre- 
gate may  be  larger  or  smaller,  so  small  perhaps  as  to 
be  called  a  tribe,  so  large  as  to  be  called  a  nation  ;  but, 
whether  tribe  or  nation,  when  analyzed  it  is  found  to 
be  made  up  of  families,  each  one  of  which,  while  con- 
ceding sovereignty  to  the  aggregate,  retains  meanwhile 
a  sub-sovereignty  proper  to  itself,  each  father  being 


A  CHURCH  BY  LOVE  ESTABLISHED.        225 

the  head  of  his  own  household.  In  ecclesiastical 
sociology,  what  would  seem  to  answer  best  to  this 
relation  between  the  family  and  the  aggregate  of 
families  ?  Most  evidently  a  like  relation  between 
the  group  that  clusters  itself  about  one  spiritual 
leader  who  answers  to  the  father,  and  the  aggregate 
of  such  groups.  If  now  for  leader  or  father,  we  read 
bishop ;  and  for  aggregate,  read  national  or  provincial 
Church,  as  the  case  may  be,  have  we  not  the  very 
thing  that  corresponds  perfectly  with  the  American 
conception  of  organic  unity  through  federalism  ? 

I  should  like  to  pause  here  and  dwell  upon  the 
highly  suggestive  and  sympathetic  bearing  of  all 
this  on  the  ecclesiastical  system  known  as  Con- 
gregationalism, or,  in  its  still  more  elementary  form, 
as  Independency.  The  great  truth  embedded  in  Inde- 
pendency, and  it  cannot  be  too  strongly  emphasized, 
is  the  sacredness  of  the  ecclesiastical  unit,  and  the 
insistence  that  this  unit  shall  be  maintained  by  a 
personal  bond,  an  actual  tie  knitting  the  teacher  to 
the  taught.  Independency  insists  that  without  the 
molecule  there  can  be  no  crystal,  without  the  cell  no 
plant;  and  if  in  its  zeal  in  this  direction  it  has  suf- 
fered the  crystal  and  the  plant  themselves  to  fall  out 
of  mind  and  be  forgotten,  we  ought  not  for  that  reason 
to  be  indifferent  to  the  value  of  the  lesson  which  the 
story  of  Congregationalism  in  America,  and  especially 
in  New  England,  teaches.  The  Massachusetts  or 
Connecticut  parish  of  early  eighteenth-century  days, 
conterminous  as  it  was  with    the   township,  and   so 

15 


226  THE  PEACE  OF  THE  CHURCH. 

ordered  that  the  whole  population,  men,  women,  and 
children,  came  under  the  spiritual  headship  and  guid- 
ance of  one  pastor,  was  probably  the  best  illustration 
of  the  ideal  of  what  I  have  called  the  ecclesiastical 
unit,  that  Christianity  in  this  country  has  ever  seen. 
Assuredly  no  bishop  of  Anglican  lineage  has  ever,  on 
this  side  of  the  ocean,  exercised  a  territorial  episco- 
pate (understanding  the  word  for  the  moment  in  its 
simple  sense  of  spiritual  oversight)  that  could  com- 
pare for  general  acceptance  with  the  unchallenged 
rule  of  an  Edwards  or  a  Davenport.  That  Congre- 
gationalism even  on  its  own  chosen  ground  should 
have  failed  to  maintain  its  standing  order,  is  a  fact 
for  which  those  who  account  the  system  an  imperfect 
and  one-sided  one,  have  of  course  their  own  explana- 
tion. Upon  this  phase  of  the  subject  it  would  be  un- 
gracious to  dwell ;  my  main  purpose  in  referring  to 
Independency  at  all  having  been  my  wish  to  bear 
testimony  to  the  unspeakable  value  of  the"  principle 
by  which  it  has  ever  set  such  store  ;  namely,  the  truth 
that  the  rudimentary  unit  of  the  visible  body  of  Christ 
is  the  group  of  souls  clustered  about  one  personal 
centre,  himself  father  or  shepherd  according  as  we 
account  his  group  to  be  "  family  "  or  "  flock." 

Whatever  bright  prospects  may  be  beckoning  for- 
ward the  Episcopal  Church  in  the  United  States,  of  one 
thing  we  may  be  sure,  that  if  this  primeval  truth  concer- 
ning the  unit  is  forgotten,  there  is  nothing  but  disaster 
in  store.  No  aggrandizement  of  the  diocese  can  possi- 
bly make  up  for  the  loss  of  the  personal  tie  that  ought 


A  CHURCH  BY  LOVE  ESTABLISHED.        227 

to  link  a  shepherd  of  souls  to  every  separate  soul  in 
the  flock  over  which  the  Holy  Ghost  may  have  made 
him  overseer.  Should  God  grant  this  unity  move- 
ment success  upon  a  large  scale,  the  number  of  souls 
to  be  cared  for  would  be  so  great  that  bishoprics 
would  shrink  to  very  modest  territorial  limits  indeed. 
In  that  event  Counties  might  become  Dioceses,  and 
States  Provinces,  —  a  reversion  in  one  respect  to  the 
well-known  purpose  of  the  organizers  of  the  American 
Episcopal  Church,  who  were  ever  solicitous  to  observe 
State  lines.  Under  such  an  arrangement,  the  organi- 
zation of  the  Cluirch  would  answer  to  the  organization 
of  the  country  almost  as  face  to  face,  the  aggregates 
of  the  ecclesiastical  units  corresponding  to  the  aggre- 
gates of  civil  units  perfectly. 

But  what  of  the  difficulty  at  the  other  end  of  the 
line  ?  When  it  comes  to  the  matter  of  aggregating 
our  ecclesiastical  units,  where,  some  one  may  very 
naturally  ask,  are  we  to  stop?  What  logical  land- 
ing-place is  there  short  of  the  seven  hills  where  Leo 
sits  ?  Why  should  the  Christian  Church,  spiritual 
corporation  that  it  is,  take  any  notice  of  civil  bound- 
ary lines,  which,  as  we  know,  are  here  to-day  and 
there  to-morrow?  Would  it  not  be  better  to  accept 
the  principle  of  oecumenicity  as  the  Roman  Church 
presents  it  to  us,  and  consent  to  merge  all  our 
units  in  the  one  great  Latin  union  which  is  so  ready 
to  receive  and  to  absorb  them  ?  This  raises  a  point 
so  interesting  that  we  cannot  but  wish  to  consider 
it,  so  crucial  that  we  have  no  right  to  shun  it.     The 


228  THE   PEACE  OF   THE   CHURCH. 

philosophy  of  national  churches,  the  whole  question  of 
their  genesis  and  their  right  to  be,  is  a  matter  that 
greatly  needs  clearing  up.  As  everybody  knows,  they 
are  the  hete  noire  of  Rome.  It  was  the  national  char- 
acter of  the  English  Church  that  made  it  what,  before 
these  Tractarian  days,  good  Anglicans  delighted  to 
call  it,  "  the  bulwark  of  the  Reformation."  To  fight 
a  nation  up  in  arms  for  what  it  believed  to  be  its  spiri- 
tual liberties  was  found  even  by  a  world-monarch  no 
laughing  matter. 

But  why,  if  we  admit  the  desirability  of  any  ag- 
gregation of  local  churches,  is  not  Rome  right  in 
the  contention?  Why  is  not  her  inviting  oecumen- 
icity  a  better  and  truer  thing  than  our  eagerly 
sought,  and  as  yet  confessedly  not  found  national- 
ity ?  National  Churches,  I  answer,  find  their  sanction 
and  warrant  in  these  words  of  Jesus  Christ,  "My 
kingdom  is  not  of  this  world ;  if  my  kingdom  were  of 
this  world,  then  would  my  servants  fight."  Rome 
has  misconceived  this  sentence  as  seriously  as  ever 
Pilate  did.  Its  true  import  is  to  this  effect,  that 
since  Christ's  kingdom  is  a  spiritual  organism  it 
cannot  push  itself  by  material  methods,  but,  so  far 
as  localization  and  delimitation  are  concerned,  must 
conform  itself  to  such  boundary  lines  as  the  civil 
power  for  its  own  purposes  may  have  drawn.  The 
State  is  the  great  force-organization,  the  Church  is 
the  great  love-organization,  and  the  moment  the  love- 
organization  begins  to  say,  "  I  insist  that  the  territory 
shall  be  divided  thus  and  so,"  that  moment  it  usurps 


A  CHURCH  BY  LOVE  ESTABLISHED.        229 

the  functions  of  the  force-organization,  discredits  its 
own  title  of  "  kingdom  of  heaven  "  and  lapses  into 
worldliness.  The  papal  theologians  are  fond  of  see- 
ing in  the  two  swords  the  disciples  in  the  Garden  of 
Gethsemane  offered  Christ,  a  symbol  of  the  combined 
temporal  and  spiritual  authorities  ;  but  it  is  more  nat- 
ural to  infer  from  our  Lord's  words,  "  It  is  enough," 
that  his  purpose  was  to  disavow  swords  altogether. 
"  What  have  I  to  do  with  weapons  such  as  these  ? " 
He  seems  to  say ;  and  his  healing  of  the  hurt  of  Mal- 
chus  on  the  spot  points  to  the  same  conclusion.  For 
that  kind  of  work,  He  would  have  them  understand, 
He  was  not  responsible ;  his  servants  had  misunder- 
stood Him.  How  they  have  gone  on  misunderstand- 
ing Him  through  all  the  so-called  Christian  ages,  we 
know  only  too  well.  The  true  answer,  therefore,  to 
Rome's  demand  that  there  shall  be  a  world-wide 
visible  Church  is  this,  —  Your  motive  is  good,  but 
your  endeavor  is  premature.  (Ecumenicity  is  of  itself  a 
most  desirable  thing ;  but  you  are  in  too  great  a  hurry 
to  catholicize  the  world.  The  love-organization  can- 
not hope  to  be  visibly  unified  over  the  whole  globe, 
until  the  force-organization  shall  first  so  have  unified 
itself.  Hear  what  St.  Paul  saith,  "  That  is  not  first 
which  is  spiritual,  but  that  which  is  natural,  and  after- 
ward that  which  is  spiritual."  This  is  as  true  of  the 
ecclesiastical  as  it  is  of  the  human  organism.  Our 
aggregate  of  units  can  be  no  larger  than  civil  govern 
ment  will  let  it  be.  We  Christians  desire  to  see  the 
aggregates  become  as  large  as  may  be,  and  we  should 


230  THE  PEACE  OF  THE  CHURCH. 

hail  with  joy  that  advent  of  the  "  parliament  of  man  " 
which  would  make  oecumenicity  possible ;  but,  for  the 
present,  the  national  church  is  the  largest  union  at- 
tainable, and  with  this  we  must  rest  content.  There 
being  no  united  world  there  can  be  no  united  church 
of  that  dimension ;  but  no  such  moral  impossibility 
forbids  our  hope  of  a  United  Church  of  the  United 
States,  for  the  course  of  this  nation  has  happily  been 
so  peaceably  ordered  by  God's  governance,  that  it 
ought  to  be  possible  here  for  his  Church  to  serve  Him 
"  in  all  godly  quietness,"  which  is  but  another  name 
for  unity.  This  is  our  answer  to  Rome,  and  it  is  a 
sufficient  answer. 

We  come  back  to  the  point  from  which  we  started, 
namely,  the  feasibility  of  unifying  American  Chris- 
tianity by  the  method  known  as  consolidation.  In 
the  light  of  all  that  has  been  said,  what  practical 
measures  would  seem  to  be  possible  ?  One  resort  is 
ever  open  to  us,  and  perhaps,  in  the  immediate  pres- 
ent, only  one,  "  Men  ought  always  to  pray."  Nor  do 
we  need,  for  that  matter,  to  frame  any  new  or  un- 
tried supplication  ;  "  Thy  kingdom  come,"  covers  it 
all.  But  how  may  we  best  follow  up  our  prayer  ?  We 
are  American  Christians,  with  certain  grave  respon- 
sibilities resting  on  us  in  virtue  of  our  being  Ameri- 
cans rather  than  Latins  or  Orientals  ;  what  may  we  do 
to  make  possible  that  concerted  action  on  the  part  of 
God's  people  in  this  land,  the  lack  of  which  entails 
such  scandal  ?  This  much,  at  least,  to  start  with,  — 
We  may  recognize  the  fact  that  the  material  for  the 


A  CHURCH  BY  LOVE  ESTABLISHED.        231 

United  Church  of  the  United  States  is  already  pro- 
vided in  the  persons  of  all  those  who  b}"  whatever 
hand  have  been  baptized  into  the  Name  of  the  Father, 
tlie  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost.  These  constitute  that 
Church  in  posse  which  we  would  see  become  the 
Church  in  esse.  These  make  the  citizenship  of  the 
Kingdom.  But  how  may  the  existing  organizations 
help  the  movement  on  ?  Here  are  these  ten  or  twelve 
great  churches ;  what  can  they  severally  do  to  bring 
to  pass  the  one  still  greater  Church  ?  I  cannot  without 
presumption  venture  upon  offering  counsel  to  any 
save  that  single  one  of  the  too  numerous  group  to 
which  I  am  personally  attached.  To  her,  as  her 
loyal  minister,  I  have  a  perfect  right  to  speak,  so 
that  I  do  it  modestly  and  out  of  an  honest  heart,  no 
matter  how  little  the  thing  said  may  deserve  to 
engage  her  thought. 

My  belief  is  that  the  Episcopal  Church  may  best  help 
forward  the  movement  we  have  been  studying,  by  a 
gradual  and  tentative  moulding  of  her  present  Con- 
stitution into  a  closer  conformity  with  the  principles 
formally  enunciated  at  Lambeth.  This  statement  of 
essentials,  although  never  given  the  force  of  statute 
law  by  binding  enactment,  has,  nevertheless,  met 
with  such  complete  acquiescence  on  the  part  of  the 
clergy  and  people  of  the  Anglican  Communion  through- 
out the  world,  that  it  may  almost  be  said  to  have 
been  adopted  by  general  consent.  What  now  would 
it  mean  to  conform  the  written  Constitution  of  the 
American  Episcopal  Church  to  the  principles  of  the 


232  THE  PEACE   OF   THE   CHURCH. 

Lambeth  platform  ?  This  one  thing  it  would  mean  if 
no  more  ;  the  doing  so  would  be  the  best  possible 
evidence  of  our  sincerity  and  good  faith  in  putting 
forward  the  proposal  in  question.  Some  may  think 
that  to  let  this  consideration  sway  us  would  be  a  com- 
promise of  our  self-respect,  —  a  sort  of  acknowledg- 
ment that  others  had  had  a  right  to  suspect  us  of 
shamming.  But  if  our  chief  solicitude  in  this  mat- 
ter be  to  preserve  our  dignity  intact,  we  shall  ac- 
complish little.  The  question  is,  Have  not  others  a 
perfect  right  to  expect  that,  after  having  said  we 
would  unite  with  them  on  certain  terms,  we  should  go 
on  and  provide  some  method  of  making  the  accept- 
ance of  the  terms  a  practicable  thing  ?  There  is  no 
such  method,  nor  can  there  be,  unless  by  way  of 
constitutional  enactment.  Again  I  throw  out  the 
caution,  Let  us  shun  the  rock  on  which  the  Memorial 
Movement  split.  Lot  all  things  be  done  in  order. 
Since  the  year  1789  the  Constitution  of  the  American 
Episcopal  Church  has  been  amended  fourteen  times. 
No  proposal  still  further  to  amend  it  can  therefore  prop- 
erly be  stigmatized  as  presumptuous  or  unprecedented. 
One  great  improvement,  entirely  in  the  line  of  the 
Lambeth  proposals,  would  be  to  place  at  the  very 
beginning  of  the  instrument  the  confession  of  our 
faith.i  Surely  the  constitution  of  a  Church  is  the 
natural  place  to  look  when  one  is  seeking  to  find  out 

^  The  Council  of  Trent  set  a  good  example  in  this  respect,  if 
in  no  other.  In  the  forefront  of  its  dogmatic  utterances  it  plants 
the  Nicene  Creed. 


A  CHURCH  BY  LOVE  ESTABLISHED.        233 

what  such  Church  considers  fundamental  to  her  very 
being.  But  what  do  we  find  greeting  us  at  the  thresh- 
old of  the  Constitution  of  the  American  Episcopal 
Church  ?  We  find  certain  provisions  regulating  the  time 
and  place  for  the  meeting  of  the  General  Convention, 
and  specifying  what  shall  be  done  in  case  of  the  break- 
ing out  of  an  epidemic  disease  in  the  town  or  city  pre- 
viously designated  for  such  meeting.  This  is  lament- 
ably, and  but  for  the  seriousness  of  the  subject,  I  should 
say,  ludicrously  inadequate.  Doubtless,  what  prevented 
the  framers  of  the  Constitution  from  putting  anything 
doctrinal  into  the  first  article  of  that  instrument  was 
the  sense  of  a  certain  ill-defined  duty  of  allegiance  to 
the  Thirty-nine  Articles  of  the  Church  of  England. 
They  failed  to  perceive,  and  considering  the  novelty 
of  the  situation  we  cannot  wonder  at  it,  —  that,  in 
drawing  up  a  written  constitution  for  a  new  national 
Church,  they  were  doing  a  thing  that  ought  to  work 
the  supersession  of  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  altogether.^ 
They  were  undertaking  to  do  for  the  Church  what  the 
members  of  the  Constitutional  Convention,  about  the 

*  So  long  ago  as  1782,  Bishop,  then  Doctor,  White  wrote  as 
follows  with  respect  to  the  status  of  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  : 
"  For  the  doctrinal  part,  it  would  perhaps  be  sufficient  to  demand 
of  all  admitted  to  the  ministry,  or  engaged  in  ecclesiastical  legis- 
lation, the  questions  contained  in  the  Book  of  Ordination,  which 
extends  no  further  than  an  acknowledgment  of  the  Scriptures  as  a 
rule  of  faith  and  life  ;  yet  some  general  sanction  may  be  given  to 
the  Thirty-nine  Articles,  so  as  to  adopt  their  leading  sense,  which 
is  here  proposed  rather  as  a  chain  of  union,  than  for  exacting 
entire  uniformity  of  sentiment."  (The  Case  of  the  Episcopal 
Churches  in  the  United  States  considered,  1).13). 


234  THE  PEACE   OF  THE    CHURCH. 

same  time,  did  for  the  State,  —  namely,  to  put  in  writ- 
ing the  organic  law.  Their  duty  with  respect  to  the 
Thirty-nine  Articles,  then  as  now  a  part  of  the 
organic  law  of  the  Church  of  England,  was  to  incor- 
porate into  the  new  Constitution  of  the  Church  so 
much  of  their  substance  as  they  held  to  be  essential, 
and  to  let  the  rest  drop.  Instead  of  doing  this,  they 
allowed  the  question  of  the  true  status  of  the  Articles 
to  drag  along  in  an  indeterminate  way  until  the  year 
1801,  when  at  last  a  formal  recognition  was  accorded 
them.  But  it  must  be  confessed  that  ever  since  their 
transfer  from  English  to  American  soil,  the  Tliirty- 
nine  Articles  have  had  a  provisional  and  transitory 
look.  One  of  them  has  a  title  with  nothing  after  it. 
To  another  a  saving  clause  has  been  added,  to  warn 
readers  of  the  Second  Book  of  Homilies  against  cer- 
tain references  therein  contained  to  the  constitution 
and  laws  of  England.  Surely  it  can  never  have  been 
imagined  that  of  such  sort  would  be  the  permanent 
dogmatic  constitution  of  a  great  Church.  Why  not 
look  facts  in  the  face  ?  The  Thirty-nine  Articles  were 
originally  drawn  up  by  the  English  Church  as  a  defence 
against  the  Rome  of  the  sixteenth  century.  Rome 
having  deliberately  changed  her  base  in  the  year  of 
our  Lord  1870,  does  not  our  elaborate  battery  look,  to 
the  critical  eye  of  present-day  strategists,  a  little  out  of 
range  ?  Would  not  the  embodiment  in  the  first  Article 
of  our  Constitution  of  what  the  Bishops  at  Lambeth  laid 
down  with  respect  to  the  Scriptures  and  the  Creeds, 
completely  meet  our  needs  ?    In  fact,  upon  any  hy- 


A  CHURCH   BY   LOVE  ESTABLISHED.        235 

pothesis  of  consolidation,  are  we  not  in  honor  and 
in  duty  bound,  if  we  propose  to  stand  by  what  these 
Bishops  said,  to  make  this  very  adaptation  ?  It  may  be 
that  the  time  will  come  when' the  Thirty-nine  Articles, 
bound  up  with  the  Westminster  Confession  (not  thrown 
aside,  but  laid  aside),  will  be  given  a  place  of  honorary 
retirement  amont!-  the  thcolo2:ical  archives  of  the  Enji:- 
lish-speaking  peoples.  To  disown  these  old  confessions 
would  be  for  the  great  communions  with  whose  history 
they  are  respectively  associated  an  act  of  deep  ingrati- 
tude ;  to  disuse  them  might  be  an  act  of  discriminating 
wisdom. 

One  other,  and  only  one  other,  constitutional 
point  needs  mentioning,  and  that  is  the  matter  of 
worship.  Probably  no  single  feature  of  the  unity 
movement  has  occasioned  more  disquietude  to  con- 
servative minds  in  the  Episcopal  Church  than  the 
absence  from  the  Lambeth  platform  of  any  saving- 
clause  with  respect  to  a  prescribed  form  of  worship. 
Except  as  respects  the  actual  words  of  institution  in 
the  case  of  the  two  sacraments,  the  silence  of  the  plat- 
form upon  the  subject  of  devotional  formularies  is  com- 
plete. But  does  this  mean  that  the  favorers  of  unity 
upon  the  Lambeth  lines  desire  to  alter  by  so  much  as 
a  letter  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  or  to  abridge  in 
the  slightest  degree  the  privileges  of  those  to  whom 
the  aroma  of  its  devotions  is  as  the  breath  of  life  ? 
Certainly  not.  Perhaps  no  greater  calamity  could 
befall  either  English  or  American  religion  than  would 
be  involved  in  the  disappearance  of  that  particular 


236      THE  PEACE  OF  THE  CHURCH. 

type  of  Christian  character  which  a  loyal  and  faithful 
use  of  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  engenders.  The 
really  desirable  thing  is,  not  the  destruction,  but  the 
conservation  of  any  and  all  types  that  are  good.  But 
what  is  to  hinder  that  within  the  pale  of  a  consoli- 
dated Church  various  methods  of  worship  should  be 
in  use  side  by  side —  at  least,  until  by  general  consent, 
and  in  virtue  of  the  law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest, 
one  or  another  of  them  had  come  to  be  recognized  as 
the  more  excellent  way  ?  A  practical  method  of  con- 
stitutionally carrying  out  this  inclusive  policy  would  be 
the  one  already  suggested,  namely,  that  of  classifying 
local  churches  under  such  titles  as  Congregations  of 
the  Anglican  Rite,  worshipping  in  accordance  with  the 
Book  of  Common  Prayer ;  Congregations  of  the  Ger- 
man Rite,  worshipping  in  accordance  with  what  are  at 
present  known  as  Lutheran  forms ;  and  Congregations 
of  the  Puritan  rite,  worshipping  without  any  liturgy 
at  all,  except  in  so  far  as  the  sacramental  words  of 
institution  may  be  said  of  themselves  to  make  a  lit- 
urgy. This  would  not  be  absolute  uniformity,  I  grant ; 
but  is  anybody  expecting  absolute  uniformity  ?  Is  any- 
body desiring  it  ?  To  reduce  the  competing  houses  of 
worship  in  our  country  villages  even  to  three,  would 
be  a  distinct  gain ;  and  with  constitutional  provision 
made  for  "  high  ritual,"  ''low  ritual"  and  "no  ritual," 
such  a  reduction  ought,  in  a  United  Church  of  the 
United  States,  to  become  possible.  In  that  event  no 
Episcopalian  need  lose  what  is  most  precious  to  him ; 
nor  any  Presbyterian,  Congregationalist,  or  Methodist 


A   CHURCH  BY  LOVE  ESTABLISHED.        237 

suffer  forfeiture  of  those  precious  associations  that  in 
his  mind  are  indissolubly  linked  to  what  he  accounts 
the  simpler  method  of  approaching  the  throne  of  God. 
Meanwliile,  the  whole  ^^llage  would  be  the  stronger  for 
knowing  that  one  communion  held  both  the  Anglican 
and  the  Covenanter  in  its  embrace,  —  nothing  having 
been  lost,  much  having  been  gained. 

It  will  be  said  that  the  country  is  not  prepared  for 
this.  Nothing  could  be  truer.  The  question  is, — 
Could  we  be  better  employed  than  in  furthering  the 
needed  preparation  ?  That  a  desired  consummation 
is  a  hundred  years  away,  ought  not  to  discourage 
brave  men  from  breaking  ground  and  beginning  the 
approach ;  and  at  any  rate 

"  It  never  yet  did  hurt 
To  lay  down  Hkelihoods  and  forms  of  hope." 

Of  course,  if  one  is  persuaded  that  nothing  in  the 
present  state  of  things  needs  mending,  his  strength  is 
to  sit  still.  But  it  is  difficult  to  understand  how  such 
a  longing  for  a  more  perfect  union,  as  evidently  is  in 
the  minds  of  many,  should  have  arisen  without  cause. 
So  woe-begone  and  pitiful  to  some  of  us  does  the  pres- 
ent broken,  nay  shattered,  condition  of  contemporary 
Christendom  appear,  that,  as  believers  in  the  divine 
origin  of  our  religion,  we  cannot  but  seem  to  ourselves 
to  be  shut  up  to  one  or  other  of  two  conclusions, — 
either  that  Almighty  God  is  bent  on  bringing  to  pass, 
through  all  this  disintegration,  a  better  and  truer  unity 
than  has  ever  been  before ;  or  else  that  what  we  see 


238  THE  PEACE  OF   THE   CHURCH 

going  on  before  our  eyes  is  the  slow  merging  of  the 
ecclesiastical  in  the  civil  order,  —  the  coming  in  of  the 
so-called  "gospel  of  the  secular  life,"  the  practical 
obliteration  of  the  Church,  as  of  an  institution  that 
has  fulfilled  its  mission  for  the  sanctifying  of  society. 
For  this  latter  alternative,  in  the  face  of  a  whole 
world  lying  in  wickedness,  we  are  not  prepared ;  there- 
fore, we  take  the  former.  This  drives  us  into  build- 
ing-projects whether  we  will  or  no ;  hence,  if  we  vex 
you  by  our  importunity,  try  to  think  of  us  as  of  men 
upon  whom  a  necessity  is  laid ;  if  we  seem  the  vic- 
tims of  "  a  craze,"  try  to  remember  that  so  Paul 
looked  to  Festus,  and  Simon  Peter  to  those  who  on 
the  day  of  Pentecost  thought  him  "  full  of  new  wine." 

To  those  of  his  Anglo-Catholic  friends  who  with 
indecent  haste  are  for  burying  the  Lambeth  Platform 
out  of  sight  as  a  dead  failure,  because  it  has  not 
brought  Christendom  into  unity  within  the  space  of 
four  years,  the  writer  would  commend  one  of  George 
Herbert's  Jacula  Frudentum, "  Evening  words  are  not 
like  to  morning." 

But,  if  build  we  must,  only  one  point  has  to  be  de- 
cided. On  what  lines  and  according  to  what  dimen- 
sions ought  our  edification  to  proceed  ? 

There  are  two  perspective  drawings  of  the  Church 
of  Christ  often  hung  up  for  us  to  look  at  and  admire, 
but  neither  of  which,  I  venture  to  insist,  deserves  our 
unqualified  approval.  One  is  a  dreamy,  Turneresque 
representation  of  a  building,  large  enough  to  be  sure, 
and  lofty  enough,  but  so  completely  wrapped  about 


A  CHURCH   BY  LOVE  ESTABLISHED.        2o9 

with  wreaths  of  mist,  that  we  are  left  very  much  in  the 
dark  as  to  what  the  structure  is  ;  we  cannot  tell  where 
it  begins  or  where  it  ends.  The  thought  of  the  archi- 
tect is  hopelessly  concealed  by  the  water-colorist's 
too  generous  fog ;  the  whole  thing  is  a  suggestion, 
nothing  more.  The  other  picture  represents  a  tidy 
little  building,  snug  and  compact,  jauntily  balanced 
upon  a  narrow  ledge  of  rock.  There  is  no  mystery 
about  it  at  all.  We  see  the  whole  thing  at  a  glance. 
It  evidently  will  not  accommodate  many  people  ;  but 
then,  nobody  can  deny  that  the  outline  is  faults 
less,  the  symbolism  correct,  and  the  masonry  beyond 
reproach.  There  is  no  mist  in  the  air,  there  are  no 
clouds  in  the  sky  ;  the  whole  thing  is  distinct,  well- 
defined,  pretty  to  look  at,  small. 

The  one  picture  is  from  the  hand  of  the  liberalist, 
the  other  from  the  hand  of  the  sectarian,  —  Anglican- 
sectarian,  or  another,  it  matters  not.  The  former  of 
them  gives  us  largeness  without  definitencss  ;  its  com- 
panion, definitencss  without  size. 

In  our  endeavors  at  unifying  the  national  religion 
and  helping  forward  the  People's  Church,  it  will  be 
wise  of  us  to  take  neither  of  these  architectural 
attempts  for  our  accepted  model,  but  rather  to  aim  at 
such  lines  of  structure  as  shall  impress  themselves  on 
all  observers  as  being  alike  generous  and  clean-cut. 

THE   END. 


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